Groundbreaking ceremonies Thursday marked the start of a $45 million project that will bring 230 new apartments to downtown Mishawaka.

While it’s a big project, “big” is nothing new to the Indianapolis based developer at the helm. Flaherty and Collins properties is also building a 27 story apartment high rise in Indianapolis on land where the old Market Square Arena once stood.

The Mishawaka project will be on land just south of Beutter Park. “Today we start the transformation of our downtown,” said Mishawaka Mayor Dave Wood.

As of today, it can no longer be said that Uniroyal was the biggest thing to every happen in the area. “1993 is when the last building the last company who operated on this site paid taxes and operated,” said Mayor Wood. “They closed at that point in time, in about 1997 or so we acquired the site spent several million to clean it up. We have set unproductive ground, not generating any tax revenue, and we've been maintaining it for many years now and today this property is productive again.”

The long dry spell will be broken by The Mill at Iron Works Plaza—a four story apartment building so big, it’ll have its own 400 space parking garage.

The rents will range from $900 per month to $2,000 per month. Any skeptics who question who is going to live there were provided with an answer. “It's kind of two different groups, it's the millennials, the young professionals and then that'll be probably two thirds of who lives here, the other third or twenty some percent would be, we're getting more empty nesters now, where, and I'm an example of that, kids are gone, tired of taking care of the house,” said David Flaherty, CEO of Flaherty and Collins properties.

The $45 million project will bring more than 230 new apartments to the Princess City. It’s the kind of anchor project that the mayor feels will put Mishawaka back on the map.

“I think we will see hotels, I think we could potentially see grocery, we could potentially see new office space,” said Mayor Wood. “This is the start of Mishawka's future today.”

While construction will take 14 to 20 months, one tenant has already signed up for some first floor retail space. The “Stacked Pickle” is a restaurant/ bar owned by a former member of the Colts championship team.