Developers seek approval on $20 million, 210-unit Seymour apartment complex

That plan provides details including the layout of new roads and sidewalks, parking spaces, a clubhouse with community pool and location of sewer infrastructure and drainage for Burkart Crossing Apartments.

The project, originally called The Meadows, is being built on about 17 acres off of Burkart Boulevard and O’Brien Street on the city’s northeast side. It is part of a larger housing project that will include about 100 single-family homes to be built next year.

The luxury development is designed to provide needed housing for the increasing number of engineers and other young professionals moving to the area for high-paying jobs at Cummins Inc. Seymour Engine Plant and other local employers that have announced expansion projects.

“This development will go a long way in alleviating some of the concerns these companies have about where their employees will live,” Jim Plump, director of Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., recently said.

Seymour Plan Commission will conduct a special meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday to discuss and vote on the plans. The meeting is open to the public.

If approved, construction will begin immediately. Heavy equipment has already been moved to the area, which has been cleared of corn and staked off for the development.

Developer Jeff Bush of Bushmann LLC in Columbus told city officials in 2013 that he hoped to have apartments ready for rent by this summer and the single-family housing started this past spring.

Delays have been a result of drainage and soil issues and changes in ownership of the project.

The plan commission tabled the issue Aug. 14 at the request of Mike Deboy of Deboy Land Development Services in Noblesville after only six of the 10 member commission showed up for the regular meeting.

The 11th seat on the board remains vacant after Kathy Mead resigned a couple of years ago.

Absent were Jim Hurt, Don Myers Jr., Kenny Pfaffenberger and John Reinhart.

Building commissioner Jeremy Gray said it would take all six votes to approve the plan, otherwise it would be rejected and developers would have to submit different plans in six months.

Because of the amount of the investment — around $20 million — Deboy said he didn’t feel comfortable presenting his clients’ plans without a full board present.

The project was first proposed in July 2013 by Bushmann LLC. It has since been turned over to Burkart Boulevard Partners LLC, a company registered in May by James Curtis Jr. of Indianapolis.

Curtis is the founder of a dozen similar companies that have helped develop apartment complexes all across the state including in the  Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis and West Lafayette. Bushmann partner Jeff Bush remains involved in the project with a small interest in Burkart Boulevard Partners.

According to information provided by Bush earlier this year, apartment rentals will start at around $700 per month for a one-bedroom unit and $1,300 for three bedrooms. Two-bedroom units also will be available.

Amenities of the housing community will include a $550,000 clubhouse with a pool and exercise facility for residents and a conference center with meeting rooms.

The apartment buildings will be similar in look to the River Stone Apartments Bushmann developed on the west side of Columbus in 2012.

Burkart Crossing will be the first large apartment complex built in Seymour since 2008, when the late Albert Skaggs developed Somerset Place on Seymour’s east side.