Historic Martinsville buildings part of $8.4M senior-housing project

Three historic buildings in downtown Martinsville will be redeveloped as part of an $8.4 million senior-housing project led by Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins Properties.

Martinsville officials on Wednesday said the project, called The Retreat at Mineral Springs, will feature 38 apartment units in the city south of Indianapolis and should be finished by the end of 2017. 

The Martinsville Sanitarium (Old Kennedy Home), former Morgan County sheriff’s residence and jail, and the Kivett’s Five and Dime building will be reused and adapted into a complex featuring from studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

“It is a win-win all the way around,” Martinsville Mayor Shannon Kohl said in a written statement. “This development is a first step in creating momentum for more growth and progress in our downtown and our community overall.”

The Martinsville Sanitarium, at 239 W. Harrison St., operated as a mineral-water health facility and spa from about 1892 to 1957, but the oldest portions of the building were torn down decades ago. Part of the existing structure dates to 1925. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Martinsville was a hotbed of mineral-water sanitariums in the early part of the 1900s, and the Martinsville Sanitarium was among the nation's most popular. After its closure, the building served as a retirement home, transitional housing and apartments.

The Morgan County sheriff's house and jail, at 110 W. Washington St., was built in 1890. The two-story brick building was listed on the National Register in 1996.

The Kivett’s Five and Dime building, at 110 N. Main St. adjacent to the Morgan County Courthouse, was constructed in 1860 and housed a drug store until 1930. It then became Moore’s Five and Ten Cent Store. John Kivett bought the building in 1932, and it housed Kivett’s Five and Ten Cent Store until 1984.

CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions will locate on the first level of the Kivett’s building to provide aging and disability resources and services for Morgan County and Martinsville residents.

“We believe this is a very positive project for Martinsville,” Julie Collier, Flaherty & Collins’ vice president of development, said in a press release. “We’re able to preserve some well-recognized local historic assets while also providing senior housing.”

Flaherty & Collins is partnering on the project with the city of Martinsville and the Community Service Center of Morgan County.