By: Josue Garcia, Reporter
OMAHA, Neb. – West Omaha braces for a 200 acre urban district 25 years in the making. Avenue One: The Project that plans to revitalize West Omaha. A neighborhood of single family homes, high end retail and job opportunities sets to transform 192nd and Dodge.
Curt Hofer, Avenue One founder and property owner says the project will ‘wake-up’ the area’s economy. “What we thought was suburban Omaha should be able to have a vibrant community where people live there. 24-7,” says Hofer, noting that consuming economic trends factor to meeting demand.. “I mean, what are we facing right now? We have escalation of interest rates, people are looking at inflation.”
Early construction of over 200 single family homes have begun, and will draw in local residents and out-of-state businesses. State economist Michael Lucci says Nebraska is looking at opportunities to make more of these projects happen.
“There are various ways to loosen up zoning and housing restrictions so that housing costs don’t grow as quickly,” says Luci. Nebraska is working on improving the tax environment, so lower taxes and tax incentives will grow attractive to investments coming into the state.
Once fully realized the project is estimated to have a 1.3 billion dollar impact growth to the city. The development will sit in between Lawrence Youngman Lake and Methodist Women’s Hospital. There is no concrete date when the project will be finished.
