TRAVERSE CITY -- A hole that long scarred East Front Street isn't so holey these days.
A five-story, mixed use building soon will begin to rise at the corner of Park and Front streets in downtown Traverse City. A building permit recently was issued to Comstock Construction, the company building the structure for developer Thom Darga, owner of Big Olives 2 LLC.
Workers will remain busy through the winter with an expected project completion date in June 2010, he said.
"We will have people living in downtown Traverse City at 101 N. Park in July of next year," Darga said.
The planned commercial, retail and residential building with underground parking draws passersby attention at its prominent location near the State Theatre and Horizon Books store, and available spaces are filling, though Darga is tight-lipped about specific tenants already onboard.
Darga hopes to fill the building's retail side on Front Street with a specialty grocery store.
The structure will include two commercial levels -- both nearly sold -- and three upper penthouse levels where at least a half-dozen units are spoken for, though there's room for more condominium owners, Darga said.
"There are enough residents to make the economic decision to go forward," he said. "People are tired of looking at the hole. People are tired of calling it 'the hole.'"
Grand Traverse County issued a permit late last month for the building's shell construction, a $4.3 million venture, documents show. The estimated grand total for building construction is more than $17 million for 72,000 square feet, Darga said.
Work on the building's shell will include steel framework, the roof and exterior brick and cast stone, said Michael Comstock, Comstock Construction's president.
"And the building has a lot of windows for the nice view," he said.
Interior work will begin in March, Comstock said.
The development is expected to create 40 jobs and attract as much as $20 million in private investment. The project received about $2.2 million from local and state brownfield redevelopment sources, said Bryan Crough, the city's community development director.
The site sat idle from 2001 until this year, after bad economic conditions and disputes about architecture brought a previous developer's project to a standstill. Darga bought the property from radio broadcaster Roy Henderson and his Clovelly Corporation.
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