McNamara Florist, the city's largest florist, is vacating the flagship location it has occupied for 57 years in Broad Ripple and opening a new store in Glendale Town Center.

The move from 1111 E. 61st St. will clear space for the $15-million Monon Place project by Indianapolis-based developer Buckingham Cos.

McNamara will remain open in Broad Ripple until it opens the new store, which could be in October, the florist’s president, Toomie Farris, said.

The florist has a total of eight stores—seven in the metropolitan area, including a 58,000-square-foot design center in Fishers—and one in Fort Wayne that includes a six-acre greenhouse and nursery.

Still, the Broad Ripple store perhaps is most identifiable with McNamara. Brothers Robert and Richard McNamara founded the business there in 1954.

“It was such a destination for years, although it was so off the beaten path,” Farris said. “But it’s just time to move on to a more visible and easier accessible space.”

McNamara will occupy 2,600 square feet on the upper level of the northeast corner of Glendale, near Monical’s Pizza. That’s slightly more space than the 2,500 square feet the florist has at its Broad Ripple spot. The new store will offer direct access from outside the mall as well as within.

The florist once occupied as much as 4,500 square feet, including a warehouse, in Broad Ripple, but McNamara moved its warehouse and design center to Fishers in the early 1990s.

Marsh Supermarkets Inc. acquired McNamara in 2000 and owned it for seven years. Florida-based Sun Capital Partners, which acquired the locally based grocery chain in 2006, spun McNamara off to a group of investors led by Farris the following year. Farris has been with McNamara since 1980.

McNamara has 75 employees, including 22 full-time floral designers.

Buckingham, which bought the Broad Ripple property from Marsh in 2000, unsuccessfully attempted to have the site rezoned for a mixed-used project in 2002. The developer ultimately received approval in June 2008 after scaling back retail space in the plan from 36,000 to 12,500 square feet.
 
The 14-acre Monon Place project calls for 150 new apartments, a clubhouse and pool, and about 12,500 square feet of retail space. The property, just east of the Monon Trail between Kessler Boulevard and 61st Street, now contains the 136-unit Monon Place apartments and McNamara’s 18,000-square-foot building.