Construction at the site of the former St. Mary’s Hospital in DeKalb could be a go after repeated delays.

Owner Jon Sauser approached the DeKalb Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday, asking for approval of a plan to build apartments at 145 Fisk Ave., a long-vacant building more than 100 years old.

“It’s been a little while, but essentially if you think back, not really much has changed,” Sauser said. “We’re redeveloping an existing old building.”

In 2022, the City Council first greenlit the petitioner’s plans, which, after years, did not materialize. Around that time, Sauser petitioned city officials to build 32 apartment units in the building.

The property along Fisk Avenue has long been vacant and is formerly home to St. Mary’s Hospital, a girl’s dormitory and administrative offices for DeKalb schools, city documents show.

More recently, in December 2025, the City Council took steps to re-establish a process for allowing the project to become a reality. In turn, the City Council rejected a measure that would have repealed Sauser’s redevelopment plans.

The city has been waiting for years to review a final development plan for the site before allowing any construction to proceed. City staff in November said they were anticipating a resolution to the matter.

The owner has since submitted required documents, including a final construction plan, final landscape plan, and lighting plan to the city for review, city documents show.

City documents show the units will have access to a tenant lounge, exercise room, and an outdoor patio. The parking lot would have carports.

Chairman Max Maxwell expressed support for the petitioner’s plans for the site.

“I’m excited to see the project back again,” Maxwell said.

Commissioner Trixy O’Flaherty wanted to know what had changed about the petitioner’s plans since the panel last reviewed them.

The plans, as originally submitted, indicated that the site would feature a rooftop patio in place of the existing garage, among other things.

“It sounds like that’s going away, but you’re going to have a ground-level pergola where there was a garage,” O’Flaherty said.

In response, Sauser confirmed that the garage will be demolished and said the site plans are a little bit more defined this time around.

“The garage was always going to be demolished,” Sauser said. “I think it was either open or really undefined. We just kind of defined it a little bit, made a little space. ... Hardly anything has changed. [It’s] really more finetuning.”

City staff also pointed to the final landscape plan and how it comes with additional landscaping.

The panel voted 4-0 to support the building’s redevelopment. Vice Chairman Bill McMahon was absent.

The City Council is expected to weigh in on the petitioner’s plans during its Jan. 12 meeting.

After the meeting, Sauser said the plan, if approved by the Council, is to begin construction in the spring. The project has an anticipated 2027 completion date.

Also at the meeting, the commission postponed until Jan. 20 a public hearing on plans to consider allowing a Pilot travel center on roughly 114 acres of property at the southeast corner of Peace Road and Fairview Drive.

The panel was briefed on the status of plans presented to the city by the petitioner, Jerry Krusinski of JJK 343, LLC, the same entity behind the massive new data center that was approved by the council in December 2025. Once built, the site will become home to the city’s second data center, just south of the DeKalb Meta data center, which first came online in late 2023. The user behind the city’s second data center has yet to be identified.

Krusinski cited the holidays as part of the reason for requesting that the public hearing be rescheduled to a later date.

The commission backed the petitioner’s request in a 4-0 vote.