What would make the Canal Walk cool?

The Downtown Canal Walk probably won't ever be the San Antonio River Walk.

A late-night bar scene is unlikely. Loud music? Doubtful.

Business owners and city leaders say that's the intent.

In 10 yearsIndianapolis is going to be "talking about how smart we were to not make it the ultimate party loud location," said Jeff "Goffredo" Hutson Favorito, owner and creative director of Old World Gondoliers on the canal. "There's something brilliant about quiet green space. There’s something really peaceful and romantic and renaissance about it."

City leaders do not have a long-term vision for the Downtown Canal's future, but they don't foresee the largely residential area becoming a noisy, crowded thoroughfare of entertainment, bars and nightlife coursing under the streets. They do, however, think the canal is not living up to its potential, and they want to change that.

"There are so many opportunities," said Emily Mack, director of the city's Department of Metropolitan Development. "It’s this wonderful public asset that has been underutilized. We have an opportunity to create more events and give back to the public."

Booking weddings, hosting public events such as Georgia Street's popular Workout Wednesday at the canal and encouraging businesses to look at space along the waterway all are included in that goal, Mack said.

Last spring the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development hired the city’s nonprofit Downtown organization, Downtown Indy, to promote the 3-mile loop of paved canal running through the city between North West Street and North Senate Avenue, from 11th Street south to the Indiana Government Center. Mack likened the canal's immediate future to that of Georgia Street, which is also under Downtown Indy's management.

"We're really hoping to create a more dynamic place," she said. "We are very cognizant of our stakeholders. We also want it to be successful, not only for our visitors but for our residents, as well."

Downtown Indy launched the canal's busiest season  with the first Canal Awakens event on April 23. More than 2,000 people walked along the canal with "passports" to get stamped by businesses, an enticement of sorts to check out the offerings along the way.

"Our goal is to increase activation and use of the canal, to get a slow return on its investment — not that it’s intended to make money," said Bob Schultz, Downtown Indy's senior vice president of marketing, communication and events.

The canal isn't the only Downtown waterway drawing attention. Visit Indy, the city's tourism agency, is exploring ways of making the most of the White River.

Downtown Indy last spring began researching and assessing how the canal was used and, more specifically, how people found it. Downtown Indy informally questioned about 200 people on the canal. Many were tourists who found it through direction from hotels.

"What we were hearing from those individuals who had just happened upon it, they said, 'Well, we don’t really know how to get to the canal,'" Schultz said. "And we were hearing that a lot."

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Schultz wants canal usage to become less about serendipity and more deliberate.

"That’s the goal — to drive more people to become more regular users," Schultz said.

Most users didn’t know how many spots they could access the canal from the street.

"If you ask people how many access point there are, they’ll usually say 10 to 12 from street level, when in truth there are 54," he said.

Claudia Spears, an accountant for the Department of Child Services, has worked in the Government Center for more than 25 years. She regularly comes to sit on a bench near the water and take a coffee break to read and relax outside of the office. One day earlier this month, while reading "The Alibi" by Sandra Brown, she looked around at the cyclists, runners and walkers on the canal and didn’t understand how they discovered this mysterious body of water.

"I don’t know how they found it," she said. "I found it because I work here."

Schultz said research determined the first and most obvious step toward bringing more foot traffic to the canal is improving signage. Downtown Indy is working with the Department of Public Works to locate and replace all the existing signs, add more and create “canal crossing” signs on roadways to let drivers know they’re driving above the Canal Walk.

"We want to make sure the new signage is timeless and nonintrusive," Downtown Indy Marketing Manager Brian Bokhart said at a May 11 meeting for the canal’s stakeholders — a small group created as part of the push to improve the canal’s standing. There is no time frame for the finished signs, Bokhart said, because "it’s a longer process than we anticipated." The city will foot the bill for the unknown number of signs.

New Canal Walk burger place open

Another goal is to attract businesses, especially restaurants, that would bring the necessary foot traffic to make the Canal Walk what it could and should, be, said Matthew Kennedy, director of operations for Burgerhaus, an upscale burger restaurant at 335 W. 9th St. along the canal.

“We're not going to say that it’s the San Antonio (River) Walk," Kennedy said. "We're not trying to make it Massachusetts Avenue. We're not trying to turn it into that nightlife kind of scene. But we came to the canal with the long term in mind. We weren’t looking to open a restaurant and immediately have the business you would have in the Wholesale District or other places in the heart of Downtown. In our case it was, we want to be one of the first ones down there because the canal is going to become something better."

There are two independent restaurants on the canal, as well as the Indiana Historical Society’s canal-facing cafe, Stardust Terrace Cafe. Fresco, 310 W. Michigan St., is an Italian cafe with fresh-squeezed juices, flatbreads and Italian sandwiches, and Burgerhaus. Fresco, which closes during the winter, has been open for four years, Burgerhaus about a year and a half.

'If you put more restaurants in this area and it became more of a cultural district with an energy, with options of the things to do, I honestly think everyone would get more business even though there's more competition," Kennedy said. "Change doesn’t happen overnight, and a lot of the issues that the canal has had have been the basics, like parking and signage and the fact that most of the buildings were built without retail frontage as part of the equation."

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But the canal has changed drastically in the four years Fresco has been open, said co-owner Doug Crook.

"There's more people coming to the canal. There's lots of business," he said. "I'm not sure the city really wants it to be the San Antonio River Walk. There’s a lot of communities and people that live down here. I think it’s developing into what they want it to be: a nice place to come down and spend the day, relax, enjoy the canal and some of the activities."

Call IndyStar reporter Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.