Eddy Street Commons is open, despite the reportedly stalled state of significant pieces of the project . Eddy Street is open to traffic and lined with new construction between Napoleon and Edison/Angela. The buildings contain restaurants/retail at ground level with apartment or office space above. There are still incomplete interiors but there is a feeling of activity as you walk through.

Initial reaction is mostly positive, with some criticism that the area is overly planned and synthetic. A common question is “Can Eddy Street Commons become a memorable college town when it lacks a bar, contains mostly chain restaurants, and housing that is not intended for students due to age restrictions and prices?” I’d follow that with “If Eddy Street Commons isn’t intended to be a social space for students, who is the target market?”

Feel free to share any reaction you have to Eddy Street Commons in the comments.

Here are several photos taken November 6th, 2009.

I took this from the top of the parking garage to show the proximity to campus (the Golden Dome is visible in the background). This view will be blocked if the planned Marriott Hotel is built according to the site plans.

This is another view from the top of the parking garage. It shows ongoing construction of the Champions Way Townhomes. The model unit will reportedly be complete late in November.

There are few people who can knowledgeably and professionally help you buy a Notre Dame condo. There are none who can help you rent one. Or if there are they are keeping tight-lipped about it.

I’ve been working with people buying and selling condos near the University for about two years now, and learned the market pretty well. I’d put myself up against anyone in the area as to having a handle on the South Bend condo scene. If you tell me what you’re looking for, new/old, how many bedrooms, pets?, parking?, I can tell you where you should be looking, if the available units are priced right and what you can expect in the complexes. This is pretty basic stuff. But I was shocked at how many people who you might go to buy or sell a condo didn’t know any of it. Forget about having been in the condos to preview them, they couldn’t name three complexes. When I realized that, I put together a web-site that profiles South Bend condos. I thought it would be a useful guide for my clients, but it’s found a wider audience – renters.

I’ve received upwards of a dozen calls and e-mails from Notre Dame students looking to rent a condo in the last month. There is an unmet need for a simple, honest website to visit or person to call to get basic information on condos for rent. There is a group of students who would like to live off-campus, but not one of the louder apartment complexes, and not in a marginally acceptable “student house.” Buying is an option for some of them, but some people want the simplicity of renting, or they want a home for a single semester or year.

I’ve stopped keeping a list of people who want to rent a condo in case I come across one. I’ve resorted to sending prospective renters to Craig’s List, the local classifieds and to “watch for fliers on campus.” Those may be the best option available, but they are woefully inadequate if you’re facing a deadline to decide on campus housing for next year and need to make a good decision quickly.

Has anyone found any useful sources to find ND rentals? I’m ready to create an online help guide for students looking to get off campus. But I don’t have anything beyond a few apartment complexes and a link to Craig’s List to put in the section on renting. Do you know of something that should go in it? What kind of information would you like to see in it? You can help shape it by commenting below.

South Bend has hundreds of homes priced below $75,000. A few of these are within a mile of the Notre Dame campus. There are currently 12 such homes available and to explore what is available, realst8.com toured homes for sale on Corby Boulevard Friday, October 19th.

Briefly, we tried to see five homes. We got into just four because one had a aggressive dog next door penned only by a flimsy fence and we decided to move on. Of the homes we did see, one was rehabbed, one was in disrepair, and two were only half-cleared of the former occupant’s belongings. One also left us with jumping insects on our clothing.

One note, these are not my listings. This is simply an attempt to provide an objective view of several representative properties. If you are the broker for one of them and prefer I remove it from the list, contact me at nick@realst8.com.

1364 Corby / 1672 sq ft / 3 br, 1 ba / $65,000

This is the best rehabbed of the homes we saw, unfortunately the stairs were moved to a central location that took away from the living and dining spaces, and the detail work was only moderate in quality. The home has a number of newer features, from the front door to the carpet and paint to the windows. There are three rooms upstairs, and a clean, recently painted basement. The main floor has a kitchen of moderate size without appliances. The dining space would be an asset if the staircase didn’t intrude into it and the living room.

719 Corby / 768 sq ft / 2 br, 1 ba / $35,000

About half the size and half the price of 1364 Corby, with a better better plan but in poorer repair. Its entrance is past a porch that could be pleasant but needs attention. The home has a fortunate location, next to a rehabbed home and across from several attractive homes and one undergoing major reconstruction. Inside there is a mix of old and new windows, carpet that should be replaced, and irregular waves in the walls. The tiny kitchen is only somewhat functional. However, at $35,000 it seems a priced to reflect its shortcomings.

607 Corby / 1272 sq ft /5 br, 2 ba / $66,000

A moderately sized house in reasonable repair, with a slightly odd plan. The main floor has three bedrooms and a full bath, and the upper level has two small bedrooms and a half bath. Together you get the feel of a rooming house without much shared space, or a college house. The basement is sufficient to hold the mechanicals, but little else. It smelled like natural gas, so we didn’t stay long enough to make further evaluations.

519 Corby /1970 sq ft / 5 br, 2 ba / $74,000

This house is set up as a duplex with a living space, kitchen and bath on each floor. There were efforts to improve this home, including newer linoleum in the kitchens and drop ceilings to cover flaws, but it still needs cleaning, paint and carpet. There are dead bugs and abandoned mattresses, but the home is much larger than the others we saw and could be pleasant with reasonable efforts to clean and rehab it. The lower level has three bedrooms, the upper level two bedrooms, and there are two sets of stairs, one between the floors and one acting as a separate entrance to the second floor.

So what do you get for under $75,000 within walking distance to Notre Dame? You can find a smaller, already rehabbed house or something larger and in need of some basic repair. To find something with more than 1,000 original square feet (not counting a refinished attic) and move-in ready you’ll probably need to look in a higher price range, but there are options priced affordably for a house and you can find choices ready for occupancy or ready for a paint brush.

With less than ten days to the first Notre Dame football game of the season, some people are still looking for a place to stay. If the hotels three-night-minimums and inflated prices lead you to look elsewhere you do have options:

• You can buy a condo near the stadium.
• You can lease an apartment for the season.
• You can rent a local resident’s house for the weekend.
• You can read / write ads for game day rentals in the comments to this post. 

I don’t deal with rentals, but I get lots of calls asking “What’s available to rent near Notre Dame?” My standard answer is that it’s always changing, so start with some online directories and then get on the phone. If I wanted short term housing near ND I’d start with the links below. Of course if I wanted housing for more than two years, I’d buy a South Bend condo and make a profit when I graduated, sold it, and moved away.

Notre Dame’s off campus housing guide.

Notre Dame’s directory of rentals (as an excel file or pdf)

Craig’s List. You might have to wade through lots of strange ads here, but there are good listings too.

Rentals.com.  Nice format. A few houses for rent, and lots of apartment complexes.

Apartmentguide.com. Basic data, including photos and maps, on the larger apartment complexes. Choose North Central Indiana for your “metro area.”

Notre Dame was granted its rezoning request for the Eddy Street Commons last night, allowing the project to move forward. Details of the meeting, with some of the developer’s stated commitments are in the South Bend Tribune.

Details of the developer’s original proposal are best covered in the Notre Dame Observer.

admin note: visit our article on Eddy Street Commons from November 2009 for an update on progress including photos of finished buildings along Eddy Street.

Note Dame is pushing the redevelopment of the city south of its campus. It has sponsored the building of new homes on Notre Dame Avenue,  and is redesigning its streets to better interact with a coming college town shopping area. This proposed retail / residential strip, dubbed Eddy Street Commons for the street it surrounds, was featured in the South Bend Tribune today.

Market maven Heidi Prescott and Margaret Fosmoe, reporter behind the Tribune’s in depth series about condos near Notre Dame, lay out details of the proposal: essentially two hotels, one garage, lots of shops, and almost five hundred apartments, condos and townhouses.

It’s an exciting project that would create a smaller, newer alternative to the Grape Road – Main Street shopping and dining corridor. It could reinvigorate the neighborhood and help propel  the city’s smart growth. But don’t start planning your move just yet. The project is in its early stages and will require the coordination of several large, slow moving groups: the University, a development company out of Indianapolis, the Indiana Department of Transportation (to reconfigure SR 23 / South Bend Avenue) and the city of South Bend.

If you want to live in a condo near Notre Dame but don’t want to wait, try Oak Hill (current listing) or the North Douglas Condos, or visit the South Bend Condo Guide to get the scoop on almost every condo in South Bend.

If you want a chance to get your thoughts about this development on the record, the required rezoning request is open to a public hearing Tuesday, June 19th at 3:30 in the county-city building.

If you just want to chime in on what shops you’d like to see come to the area, visit Heidi Prescott’s Market Basket Blog.

Notre Dame’s Hesburgh  Library, as reflected in the adjacent pool of water
taken: 4 pm, 5/13/07

more views from around the South Bend Area

The University of Notre Dame is planning significant changes. They include more Gothic buildings, fewer cars on campus, and a number of new and expanded buildings. Click here for a copy of the university’s master plan, or you can read Margaret Fosmoe’s much shorter but still detailed summary of the plan in the South Bend Tribune.

Condo activity around Notre Dame is heating up. This weekend thousands of football fans are in town for the Blue and Gold Game and are being reminded of the hotel hassles Notre Dame football weekends can entail. Many of them are considering condos for their “lock and leave” qualities. Notre Dame students who graduate in May are also looking to sell their condos, while incoming students consider their housing options.

As of today, there are about five condos in Oak Hill for sale, about six in the North Shore Club, and the entire second floor of the first North Douglas Condos building has sold out, though seven unsold ground floor condos should be ready in August. You can check the South Bend Condo Guide for more information about condo complexes, including 2006 sales prices and the ability to search by year built, or distance to Notre Dame. And you can click here to see details of the 61 condos currently listed in the Greater South Bend-Mishawaka MLS.

How does all this affect you? If you’re buying it’s time to start monitoring the market. You should be receiving daily e-mail updates that inform you when new options become available and get you their photos and details. You should also start interviewing agents – the South Bend condo market is changing rapidly and there are only a few that know it well. If they can’t tell you the rough assessments of the most popular Notre Dame condos like Oak Hill off the top of their head or when the North Douglas condos will be ready, they aren’t in a position to help you best. They just don’t know the options.

 If you’re selling it’s time to start promoting your unit. The season is short and if you miss it, you face a long wait for a buyer. Price your condo appropriately, prepare it for showings and put it in front of buyers. For most of you this means hiring an agent. For those of you with the time and expertise to do it yourself, do it right. Spend the time to take great photos that aren’t dark or blurry, advertise it online through a service like postlets, and never mislead buyers by calling the corner of your basement a bedroom. It will save you time and frustration because they will eventually call your bluff anyway.

 If you’re thinking about condos near Notre Dame, now is the time to act. If your action involves a Realtor, I hope you’ll contact me to discuss your situation.

Nick Molnar
Home Gallery Realtors
574-309-3758
nick@realst8.com