The Franklin at 11th Street Station one of several housing projects to bring hundreds of residents to downtown Michigan City

Towers will soon rise over downtown Michigan City, bringing hundreds of new residents to the heart of a community that's often relied heavily on seasonal beach traffic.

The developer Flaherty & Collins just broke ground of the 12-story $101 million Franklin at 11th Street Station that will build 220 market-rate apartments by a new South Shore Line station after the double-tracking project that will shorten commute times to Chicago by about an hour. The $260 million, 14-story SoLa development will bring another 164 luxury residential condominiums and 17 duplexed townhomes facing Lake Michigan.

And that's just the start.

"Because of this groundbreaking, five or six other investments are happening," Michigan City Mayor Angie Nelson Deuitch said. "I know we get beat up on a lot of things and we're stretched, but Michigan City is going through a renaissance period. It is going to be like no other."

The new housing will strengthen the downtown and the city as a whole, she said. 

"I think density is important," she said. "It impacts the rest of the city. It allows residents to move to other areas. SoLa is geared toward residential and tourism but this building is really focused on residential. It's like a little of both. We know we have tourism but we know we want residents to live here."

Part of the hope is to have more residents to support downtown businesses all year, and not just when out-of-town beachgoers are flocking to Washington Park, the lighthouse and Mount Baldy in the Indiana Dunes National Park.

"One of the key pieces of this is we want all of these businesses downtown to thrive throughout the year," she said. "Having that density will be important for our local restaurants and our businesses here. Both of these projects will do that along with a couple of READI projects we have that are within half a mile of here."

Michigan City is pursuing READI grant funding from the state of Indiana for three more downtown housing projects focused on drawing more workers to the city. One will supply teacher housing, while the other two will provide general workforce housing, such as for police officers, firefighters and new college graduates.

"It's mostly housing, but we're looking at mixed-use in those housing developments," Deuitch said. "We're looking at a day care. We're a food desert so we're looking at the possibility of a grocery."

The 431,693-square-foot mixed-use development will include first-floor retail and including studio, one-bed-room, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments. The average unit size is 778 square feet.

Michigan City's redevelopment commission help out for a major transit-oriented development instead of just a parking garage.

"We took a risk and switched gears. We switched gears because we knew that having a premier development on this property was important and not just a parking garage," Deuitch said. "I don't think people realized the risks that we took, the hits that we took but we stood fast and were strong about what we wanted and that's why it's happening today."

The 549-space parking garage should open this year and the new apartment building by 2026.

"It's impactful because we're trying to encourage our students that leave to come back, old residents to move back and residents that are here have an opportunity to downsize if they want," she said. "It's been a long time since we've had a project this big with this big an economic impact."

The hope is that shorter commutes to Chicago and an infusion of new residents, businesses and life to the downtown will help improve quality of life.

"We have to have housing. We have to have new amenities. We have to have restaurants. We have to have new business to impact people wanting to be here," she said. "I have four 20-somethings who don't live here. They want music downtown. They want all of that. The train downtown is a piece of that but's all the development around the train station that's really going to be important. People want to live, work and play here. It's good they can get to Chicago in an hour but we need to have the other things to be successful. I don't want to just to talk about Chicago."

The apartments are expected to cost around $1,500 per month.

"We haven't had really any new apartments in a long time," Deuitch said. "As I was transitioning to a new home 10 years ago, I lived in an apartment that was $1,200 a month. With new amenities, I don't think that will be a deterrent. We have a lot of folks looking for new."

The city also need more residential options.

"People might want a newer home who live here already," she said. "It's not just about bringing new people in but people who might want to upsize or downsize. That's what we're looking at doing."

Such investments benefit Michigan City and the broader Northwest Indiana economic, said U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Highland.

"As I was walking in, you had the chamber and union labor working together," he said. "When you can get those two groups together shaking hands and laughing about good projects and creating work and business opportunity, that's a good thing."

Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority President and CEO Sherri Ziller said the double-tracking project meant to shorten South Shore Line commutes to Chicago would create more residential demand from commuters.

"It's super-fantastic to see something you worked on for so long and fought for and really believed in for this long come to pass," he said. "It's not just happening here. All up and down the South Shore Line development is happening."

The RDA projected $2.5 billion in investment along the interurban rail line between Chicago and South Bend. 

"That's a very conservative figure," she said. "I very much look forward to attending more groundbreakings and ribbon-cuttings in our transit communities."