2 local sites make annual ‘Most Endangered’ list

Indiana Landmarks’ latest “10 Most Endangered” list includes a couple of entries from Indianapolis. New to this year’s lineup, announced Thursday, are the Flanner House Homes Historic District and Phillips Temple. The Flanner neighborhood, near 16th and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. streets, comprises 181 homes built from1950 to 1959 through a cooperative aiding African-American families that could not secure conventional mortgages in a segregated city. More than half the houses still are owned by the builders or their descendents. But Indiana Landmarks says the grocery chain Meijer wants to acquire and demolish 35 of them and build a store in part on city-owned land north of the neighborhood. IBJ has learned that Opus Development Corp. actually would need to acquire the homes as part of a mixed-use development. Inside the southern border of the area, the vacant Phillips Temple, built in 1924, is in danger of demolition. Owner Indianapolis Public Schools wants to use the space for parking. “Our mission is to save meaningful places, and this is a list of ten important places in the greatest danger of being lost,” Indiana Landmarks President Marsh Davis said in a statement. View the complete list here. In the meantime, Indiana Landmarks has removed the “critical” label from one of 2011’s local entries, The Taggart Memorial at Riverside Park. Indiana Landmarks says the memorial has a new roof, thanks to a task force that raised the money and is working with IndyParks to pursue more improvements. Since the not-for-profit created the endangered list in 1991, Indiana Landmarks counts only 12 losses among 92 historic places that have appeared on the list.