Coffee Creek Center, Chesterton, Indiana: Mixed Use Residential Development

• Author: Rebecca L. Kihslinger/James M. Mcelfish Jr.
• Pages: 57-71

chapter four

Coffee Creek Center, Chesterton, Indiana:

Mixed Use Residential Development

Chesterton, Indiana, in Porter County,is a rapidly growing community of about

12,000. Like the rest of Northwest Indiana, Porter County (also contains the

town of Valparaiso) is experiencing increasing development as commuters

move from the nearby Chicago metropolitan area.1Indiana has identif‌ied such

commercial and residential development as one of the “top two reported threats

to habitat.”2

Coffee Creek Center (CCC), a New Urbanist-style development in Chester-

ton, has incorporated wildlife-friendly and ecologically minded development

practices on-site while working to connect the site’s open spaces to region con-

servation goals. Key among the design principles guiding the development of

the site was the restoration of the native landscape—including restoration of

the historical groundwater hydrology on-site and the restoration and protec-

tion of the region’s native biodiversity. The centerpiece of the ecologically

minded development is the 151-acre Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve (the Pre-

serve). The Preserve not only serves central open space and stormwater

management functions for the development but also as a riparian and wetland

habitat for native wildlife. The Coffee Creek Watershed Conservancy (CCWC)

was established to restore and conserve the Preserve.

The CCWC, realizing that the environmental conditions affecting the Pre-

serve cross property boundaries, quickly expanded its mission to include the

protection, restoration, and enhancement of the entire Coffee Creek Watershed

and developed the Coffee Creek Watershed Management Plan. Over the past

f‌ive years the CCWC has pursued opportunities to fund projects that meet its

mission. The CCWC received a Clean Water Act §319 grant from the Indiana

Department of Environmental Management to develop a watershed plan for

the Coffee Creek Watershed in 2001,3funding from the Great Lakes Commis-

sion for a restoration project in 2003,4and funding from the Indiana Department

of Natural Resources, Lake Michigan Coastal Management Program in 2004

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