The ordinance proposed a new use for the building at 751 E. Tamarack Trail near North Dunn Street and east of Meadowood.
James Roach, a development services manager, said the Planned Unit Development proposal for the building was extremely specific.
The new proposal requests the building’s potential uses include “assisted living home” and “nursing/covalescent home” because a potential buyer plans to make the home into a memory care facility.
Julie Hunt, who represented the three private partners who make up Jill’s House LLC, said an unnamed organization from Indianapolis plans to create the memory care facility.
She said the facility could treat “Alzheimer’s patients, or patients with dementia who need a facility where they can get up and move around and enjoy their environment but also need some oversight.”
Hunt is an administrative assistant for JPF Properties, one of the Jill’s House partners.
The profit from the building sale, she confirmed, will go to JPF Partners and its two fellow Jill’s House LLC organizations.
The city’s Plan Commission recommended unanimously that the city vote pass.
Beth Rosenbarger, a zoning and long range planner for Planning and Transport, spoke for the neighborhood adjacent to the plot of land.
She said although the neighborhood supports finding a new use, the current proposal does not allow a buyer to add to the building or construct a new one on the land.
In order to build, the prospective buyer would have to submit a new PUD.
Rosenbarger said the neighborhood hoped to “preserve that space while still utilizing it as best as possible.”
Rosenbarger said the property has about 40 rooms. Kitchen renovation and landscaping along the sides of the home are necessary to ensure it is compliant with city standards.
“This building has been sitting vacant,” Rosenbarger said. “It was closed in 2014 and, in order to actually use it, someone had to put in a PUD.”
Jill’s House boarded patients at the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute in Bloomington. When the institute closed, the nonprofit located in Jill’s House did as well.
Council members expressed a desire for more information about the Indianapolis buyer at the next council meeting, especially as the organization may not be a nonprofit.
Councilmember Susan Sandberg, D-District 2, said she wants know “who they are (and) who they serve.”
Councilmember Chris Sturbaum, D-District 1, said he supported the proposal because it would make use of the space without immediately allowing more construction.
Four members voted in favor of the proposal and three passed. The council will hear the proposal again.
