A $44 million apartment and retail project planned for the corner of Saddle Creek Road and Pacific Street could finally start construction after years of delay, with Omaha city officials saying building permits may be issued within weeks. The roughly 200-unit development, first approved by the Omaha City Council about four years and seven months ago, has sat largely dormant since then while developers worked through rising costs and higher interest rates and the project moved through city permitting.
Omaha Planning Director Dave Fanslau told WOWT that building permits should come soon if everything continues to check out, noting that city officials received the permit paperwork a few weeks ago. Officials said permits should be issued in a couple of weeks if the review goes smoothly, according to the station's report. Developers told the outlet that rising construction costs and higher interest rates stretched the timeline and forced a fresh look at both construction costs and long-term maintenance, leading them to make minor changes to the plan that required new cost estimates.
A Years-Long Path Through City Hall
The project traces back to March 2022, when the Omaha City Council approved a preliminary plat for what was then called CIP Saddle Creek, splitting the 4.5-acre parcel into three lots — one for a 195-unit apartment building and two for commercial use, according to The Reader. That plat also authorized extending 49th Avenue from Mulberry Avenue to Pacific Street. During the same 2022 hearing, project attorney Larry Jobeun told council members developers would follow all city engineering regulations to ensure safety and address slope impacts before seeking final plat approval, per the same outlet.
The developers have attributed the project's extended timeline to rising construction costs and higher interest rates. Longtime neighbors Debbie and Mark Rushlau have opposed the project since it was first proposed, and they told WOWT that with no apartments yet built on the site, rain continues to wash away some of their property. Debbie Rushlau said she had been glad to set aside her worries about the project while no construction activity was happening.
Sloped Site Raises Runoff Concerns
Those drainage concerns are not new. Engineering plans presented during the 2022 preliminary plat review showed the southeast corner of the building site sits roughly 20 feet lower in elevation than the northwest corner, a topographical detail central to the runoff worries raised by nearby homeowners, The Reader reported at the time. The site's location adds to existing concerns along the corridor: just this month, heavy rainfall caused flooding on U.S. 6 along North Saddle Creek Road, as Hoodline reported, underscoring how the corridor sits in a natural drainage valley prone to rainwater accumulation.
The Saddle Creek site also sits near the University of Nebraska Medical Center's EDGE District. The area also has other major projects — in February, the Omaha City Council approved $9 million in Tax Increment Financing for Woodsonia Real Estate's $103 million Saddle Creek Marketplace project just north at 46th and California streets, a five-phase plan adding 223 apartments and 67,000 square feet of retail, per Documenters Omaha.
Part of a Citywide Apartment Boom
The Saddle Creek project is one piece of a much larger wave of apartment construction across the metro. Industry data compiled in April showed metro Omaha had 11,531 multifamily housing units under construction, ranking the city third among Midwestern urban markets behind only Columbus and Chicago, Hoodline has reported. Omaha also recently updated its municipal zoning code to reduce off-street parking mandates for new multi-family developments to a citywide minimum of one space per unit, a change intended to lower building overhead and encourage denser infill.
That building boom has come with its own friction over public subsidies. Debate over TIF and affordable-housing policies continues, even as the Saddle Creek development moves closer to breaking ground after years of waiting.
