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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMonument Circle is one of our city’s best assets.
Right now. Even without major changes.
It’s a prestigious address for businesses and a calling card when national TV cameras descend on the city for a football game or other big event.
It’s a gathering spot, whether for eating lunch on the steps of the Soldiers & Sailors Monument, enjoying coffee on the sidewalk outside the South Bend Chocolate Factory, or admiring Christmas lights before heading into the Hilbert Circle Theatre for the Yuletide Celebration.
We like it so much that IBJ is moving there in the spring, taking up residence on the third floor of the Indianapolis Power & Light building.
There are issues with the Circle. No doubt. And some of them are significant.
As reporter Hayleigh Colombo explains in this week’s page 1 story, there are structural concerns with the aging bed under the Circle’s bricks. There’s been an increase in homeless people who are sleeping on the sidewalks and panhandlers begging from passersby. There’s also no single entity to coordinate or manage activity at the Circle like there is for other downtown gathering spots, such as Georgia Street.
And now, the Circle’s largest single span of real estate—what is now the Anthem Inc. headquarters in the northwest quadrant—will soon be without a tenant. Sherry Seiwert, president of Downtown Indy Inc., told Colombo that the “condition of Monument Circle will, I’m sure, play a role in being able to attract a high-level tenant. We have to keep Monument Circle at a high standard in order to attract additional private investment.”
We completely agree that keeping Monument Circle in shipshape condition is important both economically and psychologically. It is and should continue to be a source of civic pride.
IBJ urges leaders from Downtown Indy and the city to continue looking for ways to better fund infrastructure improvements both on the Circle and its Meridian Street and Market Street spokes. That must be a funding priority.
And we support efforts to bolster the Circle’s role as a meeting space, where residents and visitors can come together.
But we would caution against going too far to change the space. We appreciate that the Circle probably needs a single entity to plan events there, coordinate road closures and communicate with Monument Circle commercial tenants. We’re reticent, however, to turn the Circle into a commercial event space that is rented out on such a regular basis that it’s hard to simply have lunch there or admire the Soldiers & Sailors Monument.
No such proposal is on the table. But there have been discussions in the past and now about how to rethink the Circle to make it a more dynamic space. Again, we like that idea in theory, but not if it detracts from what makes the Circle a special, public space that is open to everyone.•
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