Besides college basketball, what's on your mind today? A starting point: What do you think of Simon Property Group's venture
into the condo business with a 47-story tower atop a Nieman Marcus in Boston? (A spokeswoman for the tower's designer, Elkus-Manfredi
Architects, said a rendering showing the full tower is not yet available.) Would a project like this ever fly in Indianapolis?
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If something like the Museum Tower could be seriously considered for Louisville, then absolutely something along the lines of this project could work here in Indianapolis.
Justin, you are just entirely too negative when it comes to the future of Indy.
I think a tower like this could work. I'm not a fan of the style but a tower like this with apartments would work well.
With Simon getting into the residential tower business, it does beg the question of whether they can do the same thing in Indy. The ideal scenario for MSA is one high rise tower per block (or more), integrated with a mixed use complex that engages with the streets on all four sides. It's a perfect spot for significant retail development to serve the northeast side. Now Neimans probably isn't in the picture, but other things could be. (Imagine if Simon had integrated their headquarters into a proposal for this block).
Whatever the case, Simon isn't going to do it if it doesn't make financial sense to them, and that is as it should be. They have a duty to their shareholders after all. And I believe that for the long term benefit of Indianapolis, it needs strong, healthy corporations and the only way to get that is to make lots of money. The best recipe for downtown Indianapolis is to retain financially prudent, well run companies like Simon.
I love they way they go on and on about how they have this and that..esp arts and culture when they have less thearte than some of the surronding cities, they don't have a full time symphony, no museums of note. Enough said.
Louisville has many nice things about, led by its stellar neighborhoods. Even without Museum Plaza, they've already got one architecturally prominent skyscraper, the Humana Building, designed by Michael Graves, the architect who basically couldn't get a commission in his home town. And the biggest initiative isn't bricks and mortar per se so it doesn't show up on the development radar. That is the City of Parks initiative, which is adding thousands of acres of parks and well over 100 miles of new trails to the park system. Much of the land is already secured. And there's a reason why so many influential indie rockers like Will Oldham, Janet Bean, Rodan, and Slint called or still call Louisville home.
It isn't necessary to put neighboring cities down in order to talk about good things in Indianapolis.
As for a tower, lets allow the market to absorb these condos or just build apartments.
According to the Wall Street journal...commerical real estate is not generally in the same state that the housing marketing is in. Commerical real estate still seems to be rather strong.
No I don't think the Venu will ever be built for three reasons: 1. The company behind it is not on solid ground. 2. Simon would out gun them.
3. Downtown is a much better place to go with an upscale development.
Sorry you disagree with my opinion of L'ville, but I lived there for many years and it's the same old story. Talk has always been very cheap there. They are years behind cities like Indy. Mostly due to the policatical in fighthing that never allows them to get on the same page.
Not sure why your disdain for Louisville. Maybe you are just a really big fan of Applebees, Chili's, and TGI Friday's and hate independent restaurants. Perhaps you enjoy 80% of the young people in your town living in an apartment in the suburbs, rather than an area like the Highlands. Or maybe you like your teams to not be in the Sweet 16. Who knows?
I'm looking forward to seeing both Louisville and Western Ky. in the final four, though.
Speaking of music, what is the latest on the expansion of the WRSP Lawn? Weren't they on schedule to make some major improvements and adding more concerts to the agenda? Anyone?
The NCAA Museum is similar to, but not as nice as, the Engineering Research Center building at the University of Cincinnati.
If you want to get a sampling of what's going on in the Louisville restaurant scene, the place to go is http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/ The forums there are highly recommended. The mere existence of a site like this speaks volumes about dining out in Louisville.
Forget this snobby tower, tower, tower attitudes and build a living downtown area - one the young people who work in the area will be able to afford living in, as well as the older folks who have developed a taste for the symphony and plays, but who can't even afford to downsize their exisiting suburb house to go downtown. Families are probably never going to be much of an option downtown.
We need some late night places like Chic'n and Waffles, or Big Breakfast Bar or even (lord forbid) a Denny's to also support moderate living downtown. Those folks can't eat at St. Elmos or Mortons or PF Changs...... Nor can they usually eat before the less expensive places close at 5 or 6.
Indy needs life not just architecture.
As far a local great restaurants
I've lived in both cities...Indy gets my nod fom me.
Not sure about the 80% living thing, but this is a big city sprawling city. But I will put Indy's downtown redevelopment and housing developement over the last 20 years against any city.
I don't know .I kind of like professional sports and having superbowl champions and such. And I acutally like havig Final 4s here in the city which we do at least every 5 years. Sorry that was a little tongue in cheek.
Honestly I am not sure about some of the Michael Graves projects here in Indy. I know he was born here, raised here and went to Broad Ripple High School. I was totally unaware that he had designed the outside the the Thomson building, but now that you say that...yes it does look exactly like something he would do. The Arts center I just simply donn't know if that was an add on. The NCAA from my understanding is a total MG design.
I will shut up...I love living in Indy...best move I ever made.
One idea I've long supported is a split rate or outright land value tax. That is, tax the site value disproportionately to the building. It seems backwards that we reward someone who builds the Bank One Tower with a huge tax bill, while the people who tear down historic structures to build surface lots actually see their taxes reduced. If there were a very heavy price to be paid, namely a high tax bill, on vacant land, it would encourage people to put that land to good use.
You need to get out more. Try Elements, SI, R Bistro, Corner Wine Bar, Deno's Vino, 3 Sister Cafe, Brugge Brassrie etc, and some of the locally owned and run restaurants downtown, Broad Ripple and throughout the city. Here is a good site to visit.
http://www.bsu.edu/capic/culturalindy/video/archive.html
R Bistro and Elements are flawless, but not inexpensive for a casual weeknight meal. I've had flat-out BAD meals at two of the other restaurants on your list, Gbow, and won't be going back.
small town girl makes a GREAT point - what downtown needs is simple and affordable options for after 6pm, as well as daily living things like delis, storefront produce markets, and competing grocery stores.
You are correct, my bad, L'Explorateur should not have been left of my list.
Sorry you had a bad experience at some of the restaurants I listed. Personally I have never had anything but great food at any of them.
I agree, the deli, groercy store type shopping is still not great downtown. It is one of the things that needs to come up to par with the rest of downtown, but I don't think that is to far out in the distanct future ( 3 years) with all the new movement downtown with Condos, and now it appears some developers are trying to fill in with apartment options.
My best quess is we won't see that happen until the Market Square area gets developed. And, given Ballard's stance on that area that doesn't look good. Additionally that area will not be redeveloped until the MS ramp is gone which will take a couple of years. Until then I your best option is the City Market during the day. Does anyone know if they still have that open street market day during the summer. I liked that alot. Btw. I think the interior redo of the City Market is awful. It was better before the upgraded it. LOL. I have often thought of opening something small in there, just not sure what it would be.
I also think you make a great point about affordable things downtown.
But if you look closely at places like Circle Centre you are beginning to see a trend toward more affordable retail stores there. The Mall has now matured to the point that the retailers there know that not everyone can afford to shop a Nordstroms and the like. But there is still plenty of very affordable places to eat downtown for the lunch time crowd and into the evening.
Also, try to keep in mind that a good portion of downtow is geard toward convention business still and professional sporting events. Those demos draw crowds that tend to have more expendable income...which is actually what the city wants.
I work downtown too and on whole I think there is a pretty good balance.
You might want to condsider that yes Indy does have a lot of chain restaurants because it is a larger city by about 400,000-500,000 people so yes there are going to be more (quantity) of chain restaurants. or, a least the appearance there are more chains here...well yes there are more locations in fact due to the above facts.
Additionaly Indy is ranked as the 4th most affordable housing market in the US and generally considered a great place to raise a family. On top of that the median household income here is higher than say..Louisville if that is what we are using as a restaurant comparsion stick. Families tend to pack up the kids and head to Applebee's and places like that. I know my partner and I don't want to pack up the kids and take them to say Elements.
My point was really the lack of local restaurants and inability for hoosiers to support the ones we are even lucky to have due to over-saturation and general laziness.
Sounds like laziness to me.
It's unfortunate that people don't put more thought into where they spend their money and what food they eat. Chain restaurants serve highly unhealthy food in large quantities.
I'm not trying abolish chain restaurants, but the general awareness of supporting local businesses is important. It's definitely getting better and I believe it's very important to the future success of this city.
I think that's a pretty big generalization. Sure this is definately true about fast food places, like this Burger King opening on County Line. What about places like Subway, Quiznos, or Qdoba, which seem to pop up in every new strip mall? that's reasonably healthy food. I support local food as well, but the reason chains are chains is because their food is good and recognizable to the general populace. A chain restaurant was once a very successful local establishment. In all honesty, from what I've seen - a lot of local places end up with health violations at the same rate as chains.
The only thing good about chain food is possibly the taste. It is NOT good food
I love Elements and SI esp. While the Palomino Club and Oceanaire are I guess technically chains, there ar what I would call premium upscale chains in that the have very few restaurants in on select cities.