Grow Omaha
Projects

Construction is progressing on The Nook Apartments near 8th & Pine Street in Little Italy. This new multi-family development will take up much of the vacant land left over from the defunct Grace University. The project will have 250 market-rate apartments and townhomes in a total of 10 new buildings.

Photo by Brad Williams

Construction is progressing at 7101 Mercy Road on a multi-family building. The structure is mostly framed and partly enclosed. The 4-story Ajax at Aksarben Village apartment building will have 200 apartment units and its own adjacent parking garage. The new structures sit on a 3.5-acre site immediately east of the recently completed Community Alliance building and just north of the THINK Healthcare building. Opening is planned for the end of this year.

Construction is starting to go vertical on OneWorld Community Health’s $17.5 million, 3-story building near the historic Livestock Exchange Building. The building will be used for training healthcare workers, as a center point for future pandemics and to provide more behavioral health as well as child care services. Most of the funding for the building comes from the State of Nebraska’s $235 million North and South Omaha recovery grant program. The 29,000 sq. ft. building will join three existing buildings on OneWorld’s South Omaha campus. Completion is planned for the end of 2026.

A city block that was once home to Union Pacific’s corporate headquarters building is being converted into a temporary laydown yard to support streetcar construction. The block is bounded by 14th, Dodge and 15th streets as well as Capitol Avenue. Union Pacific’s headquarters building occupied the site for many decades until the railroad’s current HQ building opened in 2004. Shortly after that time, the old headquarters was torn down to make way for a proposed 32-story condominium tower that failed to materialize. The land has been vacant ever since.

A laydown yard is used to store heavy equipment and construction materials during major projects. The south side of the block will be a laydown for Hawkins Construction, which is handling utility work on the eastern portion of the streetcar route. The northern half of the block will be a laydown for Kiewit, which is handling the actual track construction. The streetcar is scheduled to open in 2028, at which time, the site will presumably be redeveloped or used for some other purpose.

The base of a future tower crane is now in place downtown along the east side of 16th Street between Douglas and Farnam streets. The site was once home to the old Park Fair Mall. Crews demolished the former mall earlier this year to make way for a 12-story building that will include seven levels of parking (open to the public) and five multi-family floors with 150 apartments. The building will also have 12,500 sq. ft. of street-level retail space and will feature a rooftop swimming pool.

The building will be attached to the old Central Park Plaza twin towers. Altogether, the three buildings form “The Duo,” a massive project by NuStyle Development. Each of the twin towers will also have retail space on 15th Street. Sullivan’s Steakhouse will continue to operate in the south tower. The former Starbucks space in the north tower will house The Mill Coffee & Tea, which will open in early 2027.

Early-stage construction has started on the southwest corner of 72nd & Farnam Street, a block south of Omaha’s future flagship library. That’s where a $44 million, 5-story, mixed-use building will soon rise. Developed by Chip James of Lockwood Development, the building will have 176 apartment units plus ground-level retail space that will host a Williamsburg Pizza restaurant and a Jimmy John’s sub-sandwich shop. Once Jimmy John’s opens in the new building, the existing, free-standing Jimmy John’s building will be demolished.

Premier Nebraska Volleyball’s future training facility is framed and partially enclosed in the Gretna Landing development northwest of 192nd & Highway 370. To build the facility, Premier Nebraska teamed up with League One Volleyball, a Los Angeles-based sports organization, which has a professional team in Omaha. The 66,000 sq. ft. facility will have 10 courts and clear height averages of 32 feet. The facility will allow LOVB Omaha’s pro athletes to train alongside youth players. Premier Nebraska is one of the highest ranked volleyball clubs in America.

Crews raised the tower crane last weekend over the future Mutual of Omaha headquarters building at 14th & Farnam Street. The shear tower core is now 39 stories tall on its way to 44 stories eventually. The tower will eventually be 677 feet tall, making it the tallest building in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and the Dakotas. Completion is planned for the late 2026.

Photo by Brad Williams