Cottage Industry

CELINA - Celina Rotarians on Tuesday got a sneak peak of updated plans for the $23 million The Boardwalk Village, a development with townhouses, cottages, a market and other amenities.

Developer Randy Bruns said he's striving to create a lakeside, community-style environment with a low-key, flip-flops-and-t-shirt vibe. Bruns Construction Enterprises is developing the project.

"It's something that's really enjoyable because we're doing it in our own little town, which makes it fun. It's fun to do something that's a little unique and a little different," he said. "The development side of it is more fun than the construction side, working for yourself and actually building something that you envision from scratch."

The Boardwalk Village includes plans for a condominium/hotel-style area called The Boardwalk Resort. The former proposal, first announced in 2013, encountered roadblocks, and over the last few years a retooled concept surfaced calling for a closely connected walkable neighborhood.

Plans call for eight townhouses containing 39 units, 18 small cottages, 12 large cottages, six lofts, a swimming pool, a market and the Boardwalk Grill, which reopened under new management last year.

"Most of it's going to be vacation rentals," Bruns noted. "That's why the marketplace was so important."

He believes Boardwalk Village will appeal to a wide range of people, some with expendable income and a lot with an affinity for a small community feel.

"People, they feel comfortable in these small towns," Bruns said.

Crews will be busy hauling in dirt to fill in the area to road level where the structures will be built.

"It took us forever to find the dirt," he said. "We would have done all that work last year, but we just couldn't find any dirt. Everywhere we went it was either too wet, or it had too much sand or rock in it."

Bruns said 2,500 truckloads of dirt are required to complete the job. So far, roughly 800 truckloads have been brought in.

"So you'll come in at (U.S.) 127 level to park and then you'll walk up steps, which will bring you to the grade of (West Bank Road)," Bruns said.

He expects to launch construction of the cottages in August. Under that timeline, they would be ready to go in April 2022.

Each of the small cottages would sleep up to four people and the large cottages would sleep six.

Bruns has incorporated "Key West" style colors and architectural codes into the development.

"Most of this stuff we're going to retain ownership on. We are going to sell a few townhouses and those will start probably this fall but we want to make sure we get a couple pre-sold before we start building those," he said.

The Boardwalk Market will consist of two, two-story structures.

"This will be like the commercial market, which is where they'll be little shops and places to gather," he noted. "They'll have loft apartments above them."

Construction of the market likely will begin in the spring of 2022.

The longtime lakeside restaurant and watering hole, a major piece of the overall development, had underwent six months of renovation before reopening under the new name of Boardwalk Grill in May.

Last year, the restaurant acquired a 40-foot-long tugboat from Michigan. It will feature its own unique menu for patrons wanting food outside of the main restaurant, Bruns said.

"We're just building a tiki hut over the boat and that is going to be kind of a three-season type area and that will have a couple firewood pie ovens in there," he said. "If you sit outside, that's the only place you can actually get food. It will come from the boat."