Mayor Deb Whitfield and a group of Lawrence city officials strapped on hard hats this week to walk through The Benjamin, the five-story apartment and retail complex rising on one of the last open parcels at Fort Ben. The project, an estimated $78 million to $80 million investment, is inching toward a Fall 2026 opening for its ground-floor shops and restaurants.
The tour, detailed in a City of Lawrence, Indiana - Government Facebook post, brought together Whitfield, Lawrence city staff, Greater Lawrence Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Brad Klopfenstein, and Keystone Group founder and CEO Ersal Ozdemir to walk the active construction site. According to Patrium, the contractor awarded a build role on the project in July 2025, The Benjamin sits at 5611 Lawrence Village Parkway on 3.8 acres and will eventually hold between 233 and 248 luxury apartment units alongside roughly 23,000 to 25,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
A Public-Private Bet on Fort Ben's Last Open Ground
The Benjamin is structured as a public-private partnership among Keystone Group, the City of Lawrence, and the Fort Harrison Reuse Authority, per the same account from Patrium. The site marks one of the final undeveloped parcels of the former Fort Benjamin Harrison, an active U.S. Army post from 1903 until its 1995 decommissioning, after which the base was reshaped into a redevelopment district now recognized nationally for its adaptive reuse.
Construction broke ground in October 2023, and the project's financing shows real institutional weight behind it. Keystone Group secured a $44 million construction loan from Peachtree Group in August 2024, structured as a 36-month floating-rate loan with a 12-month extension option, according to the Commercial Observer. That capital is funding a build that, once finished, will fold hundreds of new apartments and a stretch of retail directly into the Fort Ben corridor.
Keystone's Track Record and the Corridor Around It
Keystone Group, founded in 2002 by Ozdemir, currently holds a development pipeline exceeding $2 billion in active projects across Indiana, according to LEADERS Magazine. That scale gives The Benjamin some added weight as a bet on Fort Ben's continued transformation from decommissioned Army post to walkable urban village.
The company isn't building in isolation. Just next door, local manufacturer Foamcraft Inc. broke ground in April 2025 on The Corner at Fort Ben, a $5 million to $10 million retail center designed in direct coordination with Keystone Group to avoid overlapping tenant offerings, as reported by the Indianapolis Business Journal. Hoodline previously covered tenant announcements at that corner, part of a broader pattern of coordinated growth along Lawrence Village Parkway that Hoodline has also tracked in earlier reporting on the Fort Ben boom.
Klopfenstein's presence on the tour reflects the Chamber's ongoing role in regional business advocacy; he has led the Greater Lawrence Chamber of Commerce as President and CEO since February 2020. With retail leasing expected to open this fall, the visit from Whitfield, Ozdemir, and Klopfenstein signals that city hall, the business community, and Keystone remain aligned as the project heads into its final stretch of construction.
