It was about 15 years ago that seeds were planted for an iconic western gateway to Omaha.
City officials at the time were preparing a master plan for developing suburbia. They envisioned a splashy flag-lined pedestrian bridge over West Dodge Road connecting future recreational, retail and residential areas. Eastbound travelers would get the message loud and clear: You’ve entered Omaha.
Meanwhile, a local real estate developer had just bought his first chunk of farmland around 192nd and West Dodge Road. Curt Hofer became intrigued with the gateway possibilities, and eventually amassed more than 200 acres from an assortment of property owners.
R&R Realty of Des Moines also saw potential, and laid claim on a separate 60 acres.
Fast forward to today, and the seeds have sprouted into City Council-approved plans for what could be $1.5 billion in office, commercial and residential projects on the southwest and southeast corners of 192nd and West Dodge.

Curt Hofer, left, and son Jeff Hofer are developing land near 192nd Street and West Dodge Road as part of the billion-dollar Avenue One project. They are seen on the southwest corner of the intersection.
The grand pedestrian overpass is not yet funded. But the pair of plans approved last month, if fully carried out, would transform existing green fields into the Hofer-led sprawl of villas, condos, restaurants, hotel rooms, businesses and trails called Avenue One.
Within that same tract would be two upscale office parks built by R&R and dubbed Fountain Ridge East and West.
Those south-of-Dodge projects, planned to take shape in phases, will join previous development on the intersection’s northern corners. Those are: the 216-acre Lawrence Youngman Lake and park area that opened in 2011 on the northwest quadrant, and the $120 million Methodist Women’s Hospital that opened a year earlier on the northeast corner.
To get to the point where commercial activity could start filling out the intersection was no small feat.
The private developers started submitting proposals to Omaha planners about six years ago. Buy-in and financial commitments were required from multiple governments, including the City of Omaha, Douglas County and the State of Nebraska.
A legislative bill unleashed state funding that will help reconfigure the key 192nd and West Dodge interchange to take on additional traffic flow.
The Omaha City Council approved an extra tax (to be levied on Avenue One patrons) that will help the lead developer raise millions to cover other infrastructure work.

Curt Hofer and son Jeff Hofer when son Jeff Hofer was 8 years old and his dad had bought the first of several parcels of land around 192 and Dodge that today is the Avenue One development site.
For a sense of the time the project has taken, take a look at Hofer’s son, Jeff. He was 8 years old when his dad bought the first piece of gateway ground. Since then, Jeff has gotten bachelor’s and master’s degrees and worked a few years in the finance field. Now he’s 25 years old and hired as development manager to help launch his father’s vision.
“It’s been quite a journey,” said the elder Hofer, who declined interviews until recently, after the city gave a final green light. “The hurdles were very unusual, and seemed insurmountable.”
Between Avenue One and the R&R office parks, an area about four times the size of Aksarben Village is to be transformed. That includes some familiar spots such as the former Junkstock grounds and old Sandlot Ridge baseball diamonds.
Developers say the construction will create an estimated 7,500 jobs, and, when running at full strength, the development site could generate more than 6,500 permanent jobs.
Here’s how the parts fit together:
Road reconstruction

To make the projects work, tens of millions of dollars had to be teed up to upgrade, carve out and revamp streets.
For the 192nd and West Dodge interchange, the state is to chip in nearly $17 million and the city, $4.2 million.
Hofer, city public works leaders and others helped nudge along that state contribution by lobbying state officials in 2016 to funnel funding to top economic-impact projects. That interchange reconstruction is set to begin in 2025.
Another $8.8 million is to come from the real estate developers involved to widen 192nd Street between West Dodge Road and Harney Street from two to six lanes plus turning lanes, said R&R’s Mike Homa. That effort is to start yet this year but won’t block through traffic.
Developers additionally will cover the cost of infrastructure and roadways created within project sites.
The enhanced employment area occupation tax that was approved without dissent by the City Council last month allows Avenue One investors to recoup up to $40 million of infrastructure investment via a tax on retailers and hotels in its boundaries. (That tax does not apply to R&R property, which is financing its portion in part through a sanitary improvement district, which taxes its property owners.)
Omaha Public Works Director Bob Stubbe said extraordinary coordination was required between the various governments and developers to pull off the future 192nd and West Dodge crossroads.
Said Homa: “It really took time to determine ways we could slice and dice these costs.”
R&R’s office parks

This is a photo of an R&R Realty office park in Des Moines, though it is to be replicated in the Fountain Ridge East office park at 192nd and West Dodge.
Construction of R&R’s first 100,000-square-foot office building is slated to begin yet this year.
That structure, on the east side of 192nd Street, will rise even before any tenants have been secured.

Mike Homa
“It’s been a long time coming and ownership wants to get it going,” said Homa, president of R&R’s Nebraska division.
Other competing office park sites have formed since 2013, when R&R first announced it would enter the Omaha market. But Homa said he and his team remain optimistic they’ll fill their space, given easy access to the sites and visibility along the popular Dodge corridor.
He said R&R is known regionally for its fountain features, collaborative spaces, growth options and other amenities for the upscale office user.
When completely built over multiple years, Fountain Ridge East would contain about 680,000 square feet of Class A office space, Homa said. Fountain Ridge West would include about 200,000 square feet of building space and specialize in medical tenants.
The investment is expected to total about $300 million, he said.
Avenue One

Avenue One redevelopment site at 192nd and West Dodge Road
When fully built out — projections say that could take up to 20 years — the Avenue One venture by Hofer’s Jasper Stone Partners and Kansas City-based Block Real Estate Services could have a value of $1.2 billion.
All told, Hofer said, that would include 800,000 square feet of corporate and medical office space; 700,000 square feet of retail stores; 215 hotel rooms; 2,000 residential units; 26 acres of green space; a public plaza; and 6 miles of walking and biking trails.
Ground work already has started on the first phase, which is to deliver 458 multifamily units, 628,000 square feet of retail and office space.
Hofer said he has started contract negotiations with some restaurants and other potential tenants. Tenant demand will help dictate when that initial phase gets done, but the projected $262 million in additional value would start generating property and sales tax for local government coffers right away.

Avenue One redevelopment site at 192nd and West Dodge Road
“It’s further evidence of interest and confidence in the city as a place to invest and develop,” said City Councilman Brinker Harding.
Meanwhile, Hofer is still pushing for what he considers to be the crown jewel, a pedestrian bridge over West Dodge to link new development on the southwest corner to Youngman Lake and park area on the northwest.
“It’s critical for these neighborhoods,” Hofer said. His team has committed $250,000 for the connector piece.
Brook Bench, city parks director, called the idea awesome and neat but said a pedestrian overpass likely would reach the multimillion-dollar range and take multiple funding sources. To date, no funds for it are in the Omaha budget, though the city is on track to finish walking trails around Youngman Lake.
Bench said the West Dodge pedestrian bridge would make more sense after homes and other people-attracting anchor developments are in place on the south side of the highway.
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Former City Planning Director Steve Jensen, now in private consulting practice, recalled City Hall discussions some 15 years ago favoring such a bridge as part of a welcome mat to western Omaha.
He said the 192nd and West Dodge intersection, overall, is shaping up as an ideal western gateway that also benefits from the HWS Cleveland Boulevard system running through it.
Though the southern corners took time, Jensen expects the coordination to lead to an attractive hub on what he viewed as the last largely undeveloped intersection along West Dodge.
Omaha Planning Director Dave Fanslau said, “It really is the last large mixed-use center in our jurisdiction that will probably get developed in this magnitude.”
As for R&R, Homa said the office park developer is ready to “sprint.”
Hofer said he was glad he stayed in the “marathon” and didn’t sell his land to big chain store or car lot interests.
“We weren’t going to settle for the big ugly,” he said. “We were going to figure it out.”
* * *
Correction: In an earlier version of this story, City Parks Director Brook Bench's name was misspelled.
Changing Omaha: More than 50 stories of local development projects in the works
An ongoing list of some our development stories from 2018, with the most-recent stories at the top.
It was about 15 years ago that seeds were planted for an iconic western gateway to Omaha. City officials at the time were preparing a master plan for developing suburbia. Now the seeds have sprouted. Between the Avenue One project and the office parks planned by R&R Realty, an area about four times the size of Aksarben Village is to be transformed at 192nd Street and West Dodge Road. Read more
A former one-story furniture store that has been vacant for several years is to stretch up and out as J. Development plans to integrate a new five-story apartment building into the existing property. When done, the $17.8 million project at 119 N. 72nd St. will contain indoor parking, community and fitness rooms and 158 market-rate apartments ranging in rent from $800 to $1,100. Read more
The long-awaited Dundee Flats (shown above) at 49th and Dodge Streets is finished, and its development team, Sage Capital, is now planning its next apartment project in another “emerging” pocket of the city. That future apartment property in the Benson area is to be called the Mill, a nod to its past as a grain mill, and would become home to 95 market-rate units. Read more
The Centerline apartment complex, a J. Development project on the 72nd Street corridor north of Spring Street, is open for business. Nearly 80 of the 162 units, at 7007 Oak St., are ready and other floors are opening in phases through November. Read more
A batch of 12 newly constructed single-family homes — selling for upward of $300,000 and featuring rooftop decks and garages — is poised to open along the corridor next spring. Milestone Development’s $3.6 million Courtyard on Park Townhomes project stands out on that re-energized stretch between about Harney Street and Woolworth Avenue in that it’s new construction targeting homeowners rather than renters. Read more
In June, John Schmidt unveiled a $5.5 million makeover of the Florentine, a historic stone apartment building west of downtown Omaha at 907 S. 25th St. It's a project 30 years in the making. Read more
Armed with a fresh CEO and more innovations in the pipeline, Valmont Industries is moving its headquarters to a 6-acre piece of the Heartwood redevelopment. Some people foresee the redevelopment, near 150th Street and West Dodge Road, as the new downtown of west Omaha. Read more
It's out with the old — that is, a 1970s-era storage structure at 14th and Howard — and in with a newly constructed bar and restaurant topped with an outdoor deck. Next door, at 1410 Howard St., a separate brick building erected in 1905 is to be restored and turned into retail and office space. Read more
People familiar with downtown real estate trends expect retailers — including specialty clothing, novelty shops, service retailers and even a grocery store — to increasingly fill north downtown gaps as more apartment dwellers come to the area and daytime workforces multiply. At the moment, vintage home décor store Prairies in Bloom is rather lonely at 17th and Cuming Streets. READ MORE
A 500-acre tract touted as a future mecca of office, housing and entertainment for west Omaha has a new name — and is gearing up to play a big role for a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. READ MORE
Newcomers are changing the face of 13th Street as Donut Stop closes and a new, hip joint moves in. READ MORE
A midtown Omaha hotel property that in recent years can’t seem to stick with an identity now has a new owner and is poised to become a Four Points by Sheraton. READ MORE
A South Omaha industrial site is poised to see new and big activity as the future headquarters of Elliott Equipment Co. READ MORE.
A $300 million redevelopment project named Millwork Commons is expected to bring new life and business back to an old industrial tract of north downtown Omaha. READ MORE
A hotel-condo project, a retail center and an apartment complex are among developments helping to fill gaps along or just off of Omaha's busy West Dodge thoroughfare. READ MORE.
A downtown building constructed in 1923 that once housed a cigar shop is to be restored in a $2.38 million project. READ MORE
A local development team has been quietly assembling property to make way for a new retail and housing district on a sleepy southwest fringe of downtown Omaha. But the build-out of that proposed mixed-use Flatiron District is “on pause” given uncertainty over what might rise on a nearby block that Douglas County has targeted for a youth detention facility. READ MORE.
Former Creighton University-turned-NBA baller Anthony Tolliver is bouncing back into town with a planned 150-unit apartment complex near Elkhorn. READ MORE.
A tavern in the form of a tiny house is preparing to open on 13th Street south of downtown Omaha. Called the Tiny House, the bar at 1411 S. 13th St. is being launched by a group including the real estate duo leading the broader effort to revive that section of Little Bohemia. READ MORE.
A hotel, a sports bar and bunches of other retailers soon will start filling out a corner of the Antler View mixed-use development near 192nd Street and West Maple Road. READ MORE
A trendy row house project is to sprout south of downtown Omaha where a family’s flower shop and greenhouse operation once stood. READ MORE
Picking up a development plan that was in place when Security National Bank started building its headquarters in 1999, SNB leaders are planning a new building at One Pacific Place. READ MORE
A $22.2 million housing development called the Bos is going up in the Morton Meadows neighborhood. 158 dwellings are planned for the 2.6-acre site near Saddle Creek Road and Pacific Street. READ MORE
The number of hotel rooms in the Omaha area has jumped about 16 percent in the past five years — higher than the 7 percent increase for the United States over the same period. READ MORE
As once happened for Florence, Benson, Irvington and a handful of other small towns, the buffer between Omaha and Bennington is disappearing. Families are flocking to the outskirts of town, building homes in brand new neighborhoods with brand new schools in the Bennington school district. READ MORE
Loft apartments and rehabbed commercial bays are poised to pop up along Omaha’s historic Auto Row — a stretch once bustling with showrooms of Studebakers, Hudsons and other classic cars. READ MORE
The midtown Omaha campus of the Atlas stands out not only for sheer size, but also its $108 million conversion from a sterile hospital. A mix of retail and residential residents have already started moving in. READ MORE
Sweeping change in Omaha's Little Italy area has neighbors banding together to make sure they have a say in future development. READ MORE.
After Eppley Airfield recorded its busiest month ever in May, airport officials are beginning the next stage of planning for future renovations and expansion. READ MORE
The century-old Blackstone Hotel, most recently used as an office building in midtown Omaha, is poised to be resurrected to its original use under a nearly $75 million plan by two Omaha developers. READ MORE
The Douglas County Board will consider using eminent domain to acquire a property near 18th and Howard Streets for its proposed $120 million juvenile justice center. Read more
The 130-year-old St. Agnes Catholic Church and related buildings appear headed for the same fate as a few other Omaha parishes in the past few years: The campus at 23rd and Q Streets has been sold to a developer who expects to replace it with rental housing. READ MORE.
A familiar Old Market warehouse — the 133-year-old Woolworth building — is now 44 residences. The homes were carved out of the top three floors of the five-story structure on the northeast corner of 12th and Howard Streets. READ MORE.
All Makes Office Equipment witnesses a revival of Omaha's Farnam Street corridor. READ MORE.
A $13 million headquarters for OCI is set to rise northeast of 204th Street and West Maple Road. READ MORE.
A growing Omaha-based Baxter Auto Group is revving up with a new corporate headquarters to be built northwest of 168th Street and West Dodge Road, near three dealership structures the company currently has under construction. READ MORE.
Several projects in the works could bring bustle back to Omaha's 16th Street corridor. READ MORE.
A company that builds senior living communities has staked out an 8-acre spot on Omaha’s sprawling West Farm development. The Avamere Family of Companies, based in the Portland, Oregon, area plans an $84 million project featuring a pair of upscale residential structures with independent senior living, assisted living and memory care units spanning 325,000 square feet. READ MORE.
The former Creighton University Medical Center is becoming the state's largest single structure of market-rate apartments, near 30th and Cuming. READ MORE.
Officials continue to move closer to developing Lot B, an 8-acre piece of downtown real estate near the CenturyLink Center. Plans calls for a $125 million mixed-use development with restaurants, stores, apartments, open spaces and possibly another hotel. READ MORE.
NuStyle Development is poised to convert another downtown Omaha building into housing — replacing much of the Wells Fargo Bank center at 1919 Douglas St. with about 200 apartments and indoor parking. READ MORE.
The 30 Metro residential and retail complex brings a five-story, $20 million investment to North 30th and Fort Streets. The building includes 110 apartments, 12,000 square feet of commercial bays — and the Icona, a sculpture that stands near the entrance to the 113,000-square-foot complex. READ MORE.
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska plans to move its health clinic and administrative offices from South Omaha to the vacant former Infogroup headquarters campus near 84th and Q Streets. READ MORE.
Omaha's Intercultural Senior Center is building a 22,000-square-foot facility at 5545 Center St. Construction on the $6.2 million project is expected to be done by 2019. READ MORE.
Alvine Engineering is settling into a new home at 12th and Cass Streets, about four blocks north of the 127-year-old digs it had been in for three decades. The facility marks the first corporate headquarters to be constructed in that downtown area since 2013 when a $44 million, 130,500-square-foot facility at 13th Street and Capitol Avenue was built for grain-trader Gavilon. READ MORE.
Omaha’s movers and shakers, with more than half the funds pledged privately, are forging ahead with a $290 million proposal to breathe new life into the city’s downtown riverfront. A conceptual master plan calls for adding spacious lawns for events, a Farnam Street walking promenade that stretches past Eighth Street to the river, a ribbon-shaped rink for ice skating and rollerblading, a water plaza where kids can play and splash, and a dog park. READ MORE.