Rink-Savoy honored
A $7.4-million renovation of the Rink-Savoy apartment building downtown (shown here) has won first place in a competition that honors the best in developments that utilize low income housing tax credits. The project, by Riley Area Development Corp. and Mansur Real Estate Services, won in the category of Metropolitan/Urban Housing out of a pool of 43 applications from 23 states. The building at 401 N. Illinois St. has 60 affordable apartments and 5 affordable condos. The Rink was built in 1899 and the Savoy was built in 1898.
Fresh Market opening set
If you've been by 54th Street and College Avenue lately, you've seen the progress on Fresh Market. And now, there's a grand opening set: June 25 at 9 a.m. The new grocery store has planned a free outdoor barbeque, a live jazz band and a free bag of coffee to the first 1,000 customers. What do you think of the building?
Dining notes
The new restaurant/sushi bar at 757 Mass Ave is now open. Forty Five Degrees is a creation of the owners of Blu Martini. It takes the condo building's first-floor anchor space. Check out FeedMeDrinkMe's first impressions. Finally, you've only got a few more days for Devour Downtown and $30 menus at many of downtown's top restaurants. Make those reservations.
Back to Top
IBJ Conversations
53 Comments
Add Comment
I was ready to override his veto, until I heard from a friend that fresh market is even more expensive than Whole Foods - can this be true?!
I miss Sunflower so much.
City DMD staff fought tooth-and-nail (even against the wishes of the 25th floor, previous administration) to get better design.
As I recall, there wasn't a single member of the community present at the deciding hearing willing to advocate for proper urban design.
You weren't there then. Why are you complaining now?
If close to the sidewalk is the standard of urban design, the new building has the old grocery store on the site beaten by a mile. And it is much more attractive.
I miss Sunflower Market also but at least TFM is still in my neighborhood now if we can just get Trader Joe's to move in there somewhere.
I guarantee you most people won't realize there's a garage above the store, and will be fighting for the few spaces in front of the building.
We're also going to see some huge traffic jams at College and 54th. They've put all of the vehicle entrances too close to that intersection which is busy enough as is.
Perfection is an unattainable standard. Improvement is obvious if you try to quantify it: closer to the sidewalk, check. Less surface parking, check. More attractive facade, check. Clear improvements. Better, even though not perfect.
Ablerock...the corner handled all that traffic just fine when it was Atlas AND Cath AND a ramshackle office building. People might actually walk there.
The bigger issue will be finding parking for Yat's. Their growth years coincided with the closing of Atlas and Cath.
I don't think people in that neighborhood are idiots. I have friends who live there. BUT, there is a belief ingrained into the contemporary Hoosier's mind that one should be able to park directly in front of a place of business. People either ignore or are oblivious to the most obvious of signs, ESPECIALLY when it comes to driving an automobile:
No Left Turns? Doesn't apply to me, I need to go left!
30 MPH Speed Limit? I'll go 45 'cause I've got places to go!
Entrance Only? I'm in a hurry, so I'll just use it as an exit real quick!
4-way stop? No one else is here, so I'll just drive through it!
Crosswalk? I'll just stop my car on top of it to get as close to the intersection as possible!
Etc. They've presented the possibility of upfront parking, that's what people expect and are used to, so that's what they'll go for.
Thundermutt,
Regarding my traffic comments, you're ignoring the boom that has happened in that neighborhood over the last few years. Every corner of that intersection now houses several viable, healthy businesses, all at the same time. It's busier than it ever has been, and adding a big grocer is just going to add to the congestion that's already present. It's not an opinion, it's fact. Putting the vehicle entrances farther back on both 54th and College would have helped immensely. Now you'll have people trying to exit the lots right next to the intersection. Brilliant.
I like the place. I wanted to live there but my income is not low enough to qualify as a renter or buy one of the condos.
Unfortunately, I could not afford to buy the other condos (high-priced)downtown.
My conclusion is if you want to live downtown, you have to have really low income, or really high income. No place in between.
At the nodes along College, the buildings are set back from the right-of-way edge even if the building owner/developer puts concrete or parking in front of the building. I'm thinking of Binkley's at Kessler, the buildings directly across College from Fresh Market, the node at 52nd, the node at 49th...I can't think of a case where the building is as close as five or ten feet from the back of the College Ave. curb. In most cases it's ten to twenty-five feet back, in some cases matching the nearest house or apartment building.
The condos might be selling at $180K, but those are for 600 sq.ft.
I think the point that many of us are trying to express here relates not so much to the quantitative measurement of the setback, but moreso to its function. All the great commercial nodes on College give us, in order: 1) street, 2) sidewalk, 3) building. There's no accommodation of the automobile anywhere betwixt that sacred trinity. Cars are relegated to the side or rear, if they're acknowledged at all.
Yes, the Fresh Market development is dramatically better than what preceded it. I will shop there, gladly, as I did at Atlas. But it could be - it should be - better.
38th: Parking everywhere
42nd: Two parking lots right on the corner (one police, one fire)
46th: Upfront parking at the Double-8, plus a gas station across the street.
49th: Upfront parking at the barbecue place, the Bottle Shoppe, and the former Steck's.
52nd: Upfront parking at Sparkle Cleaners and Hollywood Video
54th: Parking between the awning and the street at Moe & Johnny's
Kessler: Car repair, pet care, and Fox Stained Glass all have parking between the building and street.
I'd say cars are very well acknowledged on the commercial nodes on College and your sacred trinity might be a huge stretch.
I realize I'm not going to convince the whiners, but let's at least deal in facts instead of wishes and profane outbursts.
Please enlighten us to your inside information regarding Penn Centre, or are you just blowing smoke?
BECAUSE, last I heard from people involved was that it was still moving forward, so if you have any information, those of us here would appreciate the latest.
Yat's, Aristocrat, Taste, Blue Lagoon, the others (including most of Broad Ripple) that do not accommodate vehicles between the sidewalk and the street are places you see people both walking to and walking past both for utility and by choice.
By the way, what's the least enjoyable portion of B.R. Avenue, between College and the Monon, to walk along?
The Fresh Market building is ugly because it has a horrible use of materials - look how stupid those red plastic signage letters look sandwiched between the stone cladding (I mean yeah it's real stone but used in such a way as to totally deny it's load-carrying capability, I actually feel sorry for it.) It feels very suburban. Still, I'll be able to bike to it, and if it's less expensive than Whole/Wild Oats I'll shop there. In winter, when the farmer's market is closed.
Hey, anyone else have formatting issues with the text box here on a mac? I can't scroll back and forth in it.
I have always seen lots of people walking through the Broad Ripple intersection that Donna cites. Why? Like the Circle downtown, it's a center of activity and the cars and people negotiate movements.
I don't believe that getting rid of cars (or preventing cars and people from mingling) is the solution to pedestrian friendliness. I believe the answer is to slow cars down and make drivers watch where they are going at pedestrian nodes.
Thunder, I am not saying that a certain amount of parking is tolerable, but certainly less parking is less disruptive to pedestrians, and provides less conflict for a pedestrian trying to reach a destination. The fact that people will walk past a relatively small, uninviting area such as Jimmy John's/Subway to get from one inviting area to another does not deny that those developments negatively impact the urban fabric of the neighborhood. And I can't say how uncomfortable others feel walking around Moe & Johnny's, but I really don't think a development where cars are invited to enter/exit across the sidewalk at any location along the site's frontage can be considered pedestrian friendly. I understand this is an adaptive re-use, but I certainly don't view it as a model for urban development.
You are right that it is not strictly urban but it has many urban characteristics: the neighborhood commercial nodes on College, the standard 40-foot lot width in M-K (with accompanying small side setbacks), alleys, and sidewalks with tree lawns are the main living remnants of that development pattern.
It was set up for walking. It is far less car-centered than true suburban development such as the area east of the Monon and north/east of Broad Ripple which were developed post-WWII.
Idyllic, the Fresh Market parking is access-controlled, not free-range like Moe & Johnny's and many of the other examples I cited. There are good sidewalks around the site, so it should present little problem to the pedestrians. The new trees will even provide shade someday...it looked pretty inviting when I drove by last night. I really think the urbanists among us need to choose battles far more carefully.
One of the concepts lost recently in urban design is the notion of relief from the urban canyon effect at intersections, i.e., not building fully to the corner. (Look in the 1983 Meridian Street plan, which called for relief at certain corners, including 16th.) Open areas, plazas, greenspace, and full space for trees (even when surrounding parking) do add to the urban environment.
labmom, the Broad Ripple Kroger has been completely redesigned and is MUCH, much, much nicer now, with a decent enough organics section for a small mainstream store.
thundermutt: as you say, slowing cars down so that pedestrians and cars - and even bicycles and strollers! - can share the public space is the key to any and every successful urban place.
Cathy, what can we do to make you happy? You seem to be a bit bitter about a lot of things devel,opment-wise here in Indy. That isn't healthy.
New construction in Indianapolis shouldn’t compare itself to the lowest common denominator, it should compare itself to the best urban designs in the country.
Where is the striving? The risk-taking?
As I get older, I find myself repeating those old truisms more...like Rome wasn't built in a day.
If you want to strive and take risks, do it the same way I did: invest and borrow a pile of money and make it go. Or not. It doesn't count if you merely wonder out loud why others don't. Fresh Market IS taking a risk.
I'm not sure about the whole argument about granting relief at street corners. Landscaping is great, especially since the trees don't generally move into your path when you try to walk past them and into a building. I don't think anyone objects to planting trees along College Avenue, but those are in the right-of-way, and could have been planted regardless of where the building was located.
Speaking of relief at 16th & Meridian, I saw that the CVS that was approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals is scheduled for a hearing before the MDC. I thought the staff was recommending approval of that monstrosity. Between the few faux windows along Meridian Street and the loading dock along 16th Street, it should relieve pedestrians of any legitimate reason to be at that corner.