Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Indianapolis-based homebuilder Onyx+East will begin work this spring on its first residential development in Fishers.
Nickel Row will consist of 35 town houses on three acres along the Nickel Plate Trail, south of East 116th Street. The company purchased the property at 11445 Fishers Pointe Blvd. from Holy Family Episcopal Church. Fishers-based construction company Meyer Najem Corp. will work with Onyx+East to build the town houses.
“We are experts in trailside development, whether the Monon or [the Indianapolis Cultural Trail] or now the Nickel Plate Trail,” Onyx+East Vice President of Acquisitions and Development Jake Dietrich said. “We know how to bring about energy and vitality to these trailside fronting sites.”
Onyx+East, Holy Family Episcopal Church and the city of Fishers held a groundbreaking event on Wednesday for the Nickel Row development.
Dietrich said Onyx+East finalized the purchase of three acres from the church last week. The town houses will be built on a grassy area adjacent to the church, which retains the remaining three acres that include the church building and parking lot.
The developer plans to construct 10 buildings that will be three stories each with two to five town houses per building. The town houses, which will be priced starting in the mid-$500,000s, will feature open-concept interiors, two-car garages and premium finishes. A dozen units will have have private elevators.
Floorplans will range from 2,190 square feet to 2,317 square feet with three or four bedrooms and 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 bathrooms.
Mayor Scott Fadness said infill housing developments like Nickel Row are important for Fishers as it allows the city to have a diverse collection of housing for people with different needs and wants.
“We’ve got to meet a variety of different people at where they’re at in their life,” Fadness said. “And not everyone wants a 6,000-square-foot single-family home. Others want townhomes. Others want multifamily. We want to create a diverse opportunity for people to come and call Fishers home, and these urban infill projects allow that to happen today.”
The Nickel Plate Trail has spurred significant development in Fishers, which has essentially completed its portion of the 17-mile path. The city is planning to build one more bridge over the busy East 96th Street intersection. Development is underway as well in Noblesville, which is working to complete its section of the trail, and construction is in the final stretch in Indianapolis.
In Fishers, the trail spurred a $157 million mixed-use project in the Nickel Plate District including Hotel Nickel Plate, the First Internet Bank headquarters, a 237-unit multifamily development called Nickel Plate Station and the rehabilitation of older buildings in downtown Fishers.
“You can just take a walk down the Nickel Plate Trail today and see hundreds of millions of dollars of investment being currently underway, and that’s really exciting,” Fadness and. “And we’re seeing kind of the missing middle. You’re having town homes, you’re having condos, multifamily, even single-family residential being redeveloped all along this area.”
Holy Family Episcopal Church, which has about 150 members, opened its current building on Fishers Pointe Boulevard in 1995.
Senior Warden Gary Snyder said the church was struggling financially before discussions began with Onyx+East, and the sale provided resources to get it on solid footing. A purchase price for the three acres of land was not disclosed.
“We’ve worked together on a project that’s going to benefit the community, the city and the church,” Snyder said. “We have a business venture with companies based here in Fishers and Indianapolis. We have more homes and businesses being created here at Fishers. And Holy Family is going to realize financial stability that’s going to help us be a positive community here in the city of Fishers for years to come.”
Nickel Row will be Onyx+East’s fourth housing development in Hamilton County following Uptown at the Village of WestClay, Melange and Flora in Carmel. The developer spun off from Indianapolis-based Milhaus Development LLC in 2016.
“We wanted to be in Fishers, but we’re very selective with where we develop,” Dietrich said. “And for our first project to be along the Nickel Plate, it literally couldn’t be more perfect for us to be our first project. It’s right up our wheelhouse.”
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Much better than all the Pulte garbage being built in Fishers.
Nice work Jake and Meyer Najem!
All fine, hopefully quality wise, but it’s really time to move beyond the 18th-20th century architecture into the 21st century of modern. Time to get tasty and advance our building designs. Safe and same old is getting real old!