Jasper council backs former Indiana Desk building redevelopment plan
Jasper’s council cleared a support letter for a nearly $16 million plan to turn the old Indiana Desk factory into 60 apartments and commercial space downtown.
A long-vacant industrial landmark downtown got a crucial public boost as Jasper’s Common Council unanimously agreed on June 18 to send a support letter for the former Indiana Desk building redevelopment. The non-binding letter could help unlock a nearly $16 million plan that would turn the 119-year-old property at 13th and Mill Street into 60 market-rate apartments and up to 50,000 square feet of commercial flex space, with a courtyard and green space replacing smaller structures already demolished.
Ruger Kerstiens, chief executive of Premier Property Management, returned to the council with an updated financing picture for the project, which Premier Property and Krempp Construction want to include with a Lilly Endowment application due the following week. The developers are seeking $3 million in blight funds, and the program requires a one-to-one local match, meaning the community must put together a local package equal to the grant amount, though it does not have to come entirely in cash.
Kerstiens told council the city’s cash contribution had been reduced from $1.5 million to $1 million after discussions with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, which shifted $500,000 of the burden toward Lilly Endowment funds. The local package now includes a $1 million tax-increment financing contribution, a proposed 10-year phased property tax abatement that the IEDC counts toward the match at cost, and already-budgeted public work nearby, including Mill Street waterline work and planned Vine Street paving and sidewalk improvements.
The redevelopment would give new life to a building tied to Jasper’s industrial past. Indiana Furniture’s history says the factory at 12th and Mill Streets was completed in 1905 as Jasper Novelty Works, became Indiana Desk Company in 1929, and once produced 1,000 to 1,200 desks a month. That long manufacturing history is part of why the project carries symbolic weight as well as financial risk for downtown.
This is the second major attempt to remake the property after Indiana Furniture sold it to Krempp Corporation in 2024. An earlier Flaherty & Collins proposal called for about 147 apartments and a roughly $40 million project, but it stalled after the team did not secure the tax credits it was pursuing.
The housing backdrop makes the latest push more significant. Jasper’s population estimate reached 17,279 on July 1, 2025, up from 16,703 in the 2020 census, and city planning staff said Jasper added 102 housing units in 2023 while seeing about $36 million in total investment in new homes, structures and businesses. If the Lilly funding comes through, the former Indiana Desk site could become one of downtown Jasper’s most visible reuse projects in years, adding residents, business space and new foot traffic to a block shaped by its past and its next chapter.
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