Legacy Development and its partners on the Bellmont Promenade proposal are still searching for a company to take on the multi-family portion of the plan, the missing piece to the delayed project.
Dave Claflin with Legacy said Bellmont Partners is shooting for the end of the year or January 2019 — but “hopefully sooner” — to identify a new partner.
“There’s nothing on our end that has caused us to cool on the project,” Claflin said. “We still want to move ahead as fast as possible.”
The delay of a few months comes after the developer announced that it was making modifications to the residential component of the project plan and then canceled requests for both rezoning and tax increment financing (TIF) plan for the project. Claflin said he doesn’t want to speculate whether the search over the next few months could delay the project completion date, but the developer has no plans to make major changes to the schedule.
Claflin added that “a ton” of interested multi-family developers have met with Legacy in the past few weeks.
“We’re looking for somebody to handle the apartment and mixed-use part of the project,” he said.
Bellmont Partners is still required to go back in front of the Shawnee planning commission, Claflin said. That date will probably be set once the developer identifies the multi-family partner and makes minor modifications to the project.
“I don’t anticipate having to start at square one with anything,” Claflin said, “but I know when we go in front of the planning commission, we will want these answers and not make it hypothetical.”
Residents and Shawnee councilmembers have expressed concerns with the project, on which Legacy has been working for about two years, due to topography and drainage issues.