Smith: Project will bridge Near Eastside, Downtown
With all of the construction cranes, skeletons of new apartment buildings and buzz about upcoming restaurants now percolating in Downtown, it’s easy to think that the breakneck pace of projects will inevitably slow in a few years.
Don’t hold your breath.
Nearly 60 projects are in the works between now and 2017 for the hopping heart of Indianapolis. That’s apartment buildings, hotels, office towers, restaurants and parking garages. No new stadiums yet.
“Downtown is unbelievably thriving,” said Sherry Seiwert, president of Downtown Indy, said Wednesday, laying out the $1.36 billion worth of investment over the next two years.
Her team focused on the flashy projects. Market Square Tower, the Downtown Transit Center, the new headquarters for Cummins Inc. and Pulliam Square.
But not all of Downtown is flashy.
Even more important are the projects that aren’t — like the effort to turn the Circle City Industrial Complex from a site that most people don’t even know exists into a destination on the Near Eastside.
The building is a bit off the beaten path, even though it’s massive, is painted a glow-in-the-dark shade of blue, and sits only a block from the Monon Trail and the Cultural Trail near East 10th Street.
It was built in the 1920s to house automotive components maker Schwitzer Corp.
But by the time I moved to Indianapolis 10 years ago, the complex was little more than a crumbling, old industrial site with a craggy parking lot and a ton of overgrown brush. It looked like no one had touched it for years.
Today, it is a bit better. The complex is home to a number of artists and RecycleForce, a recycling and workforce training company. It’s where New Day Meadery produces its cider and mead, and it’s where People for Urban Progress sorts through the fabric from the RCA Dome and Super Bowl banners to make its purses and messenger bags.
But with a project now in the works, it would become much more.
Planned for the western tip, closest to the Monon Trail, is a restaurant, along with retail storefronts, a courtyard and offices. The bulk of the 120,000-square-foot space will be designated for design-focused entrepreneurs who are a part of the emerging “makers” movement.
Total investment in the project is $5 million, with money and advice coming from a variety of sources, including the city, building-owner Teagan Development, Local Initiatives Services Corp. and Riley Area Development Corp.
Larry Jones, who runs Teagan, envisions the project as a bridge that brings the Near Eastside into Downtown in the same way projects along Virginia Avenue have brought Fountain Square, Fletcher Place and Holy Rosary into the fold.
“This is the next big neighborhood,” he said.
Revamping the Circle City Industrial Complex also will help connect development along East 16th Street, including new restaurants and apartments, to the Near Eastside via the Monon Trail.
Suddenly, Herron-Morton, Hillside, the Near Eastside and Mass Ave won’t seem so far apart. So disparate.
This is how long-struggling urban neighborhoods, the ones outside the tall buildings going up Downtown, start to grow. These are the neighborhoods that need investment the most, and we shouldn’t forget that while staring at all of the flashy new buildings going up in Downtown.
Contact Star columnist Erika D. Smith at (317) 444-6424, erika.smith@indystar.com or on Twitter at @erika_d_smith.
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