A photo of Hardees located inside the Lake Village Shopping Center, 3360 Lake City Highway, Warsaw. Photo from Google Maps

WARSAW — The Warsaw Plan Commission approved a preliminary and final plat for Lake Village Shopping Center Subdivision during the meeting held tonight, Sept. 9.

Tom Hardy of John Kimpel and Associates, Warsaw, was present at the meeting to explain the request. “Basically the subdivision plat came about — we got kind of lucky — Hardee’s is tearing down their building but the good news is they’re building a new one. They didn’t want to be a part of the leasing program again because, obviously, Kmart is going out of business so they wanted to purchase the lot they wanted to build on.”

This plat creates three lots from the original 25.68-acre lot and the subdivision will maintain access to Frontage Road and existing utilities.

Since the plat does not include any additional infrastructure, Senior Planner Justin Taylor recommended approval. The board voted to suspend the rules and unanimously approved both the first and final plat requests.

City Planner Jeremy Skinner presented a resolution to amend the boundaries of the Winona Interurban Redevelopment Area during the meeting. This resolution was presented to and approved by the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission earlier today.

Skinner explained that the request to expand the area originally came about as a request to create a riverfront district in the area. Riverfront districts are created to allow additional alcohol licenses in a certain area, but the requesting business was not identified.

According to Skinner, the city saw this request as a good opportunity to expand the Winona Interurban Redevelopment Area to also include the former Arnolt Property on East Durbin Street. The city expects to acquire the property in the “very near future” and the expansion will allow the city to seek funds from the Michiana Area Council of Governments for possible environmental clean-up. The city is also actively seeking funds to clean up the Gatke Property which is also located in the Winona Interurban Redevelopment Area.

“Our hope is, we still want to redevelop Gatke and you’re adding Arnolt into it. Those are two areas we’re targeting. Our goal is to redevelop those and put them back on the tax rolls to generate funds,” said Skinner.

The board approved the request to expand the Winona Interurban Redevelopment Area. The city’s redevelopment commission also approved initial plans to expand the area in a meeting earlier Monday. The matter will appear next before the Warsaw City Council.

The board also unanimously approved a final plat for Belle Augusta, off of CR 225E, Warsaw. This preliminary play was approved in 2014. It was explained that sections three and four of this subdivision will contain single-family residences.