Downtown’s Heer’s, Sky Eleven set to open

The green construction fence is coming down and the wait is over as a highly anticipated pair of downtown high-rise apartments are set to open in coming days.

The $15.5 million Sky Eleven, housed in the former Woodruff Building on the corner of Park Central East and Jefferson Avenue, will start moving in tenants this weekend.

“We’ve been working 18-hour days to get this done,” said Bruce Adib-Yazdi, design and construction manager for developer The Vecino Group, of work on the 90-unit building.

Originally slated for completion July 15, the Build LLC project is slightly behind schedule, but Adib-Yazdi said the company plans to hold a grand opening for the media and a select group of attendees on Aug. 13.

Just across the square, Dalmark Development Group is wrapping up construction on downtown Springfield’s white elephant. Just 14 months after Straub Construction Co. demolition began on the $15.7 million project, Dalmark President Jim Nichols said residents will start moving in Aug. 7 and a grand opening and ribbon cutting are slated for Aug. 11.

“We have about 30 percent of the units rented right now and are very happy with that,” Nichols said. “A lot of people wanted to wait and see what the inside looked like before committing to rent.”

Of the building’s five penthouse units – which rent for $2,100 per month – three already are leased.

With 80 market rate and luxury apartments above, Nichols said he’s still working on a tenant for the building’s first-floor retail space, adding he has an interested party and hopes to announce within the next few weeks. Construction Project Manager Zac Nichols indicated the potential tenant would be an office user seeking to fill all 18,000 square feet. Preliminary plans called for as many as four tenants on the floor.

Originally slated for completion in September, in time for the building’s centennial celebration, Jim Nichols had made it known he wanted to finish up in August. The building was issued its temporary certificate of occupancy July 30.

“Is it 100 percent done? No, but it’s nearly there,” Nichols said. “There will be people in here for the next three of four weeks touching up paint and doing things like installing TVs in the common rooms.”

Dalmark granted Springfield Business Journal an exclusive tour of the property this morning where construction workers labored to get the finishing touches complete before the final deadline.

“We hope to have everything done by Sept. 1,” Zac Nichols said. “That includes things like the police substation on the first floor and all the common areas.”

Furnishings still are being installed in the third floor game room and theater, which will include pingpong and pool tables, couches and an 80-inch television. Also on the third floor, work already is complete on a resident storage locker. The wood and wire-frame units will rent for $15 to $25 a month depending on size.

Accessed through a garage door on Olive Street, the floor of the underground basement parking garage is in the process of being sealed and will contain 72 parking spots, rented for $50 a month. A back entrance to the building also provides access to 80 reserved spots in the adjacent parking garage. Spaced throughout the garage’s four floors, the spots will rent for $25 a month.

Nichols said the finishing touches would be the instillation of large, maroon, metal letters spelling out “Heers” in the building’s entryway. The letters were found in the building during demolition and originally unveiled during the June 2014 groundbreaking ceremony.

“This has gone better than we expected or could have hoped,” Jim Nichols said. “We are excited to see this old building come back to life.”