Cultural campus planned as focal point of Crooked Creek

Although the Crooked Creek neighborhood is far from sleepy—thanks to tens of thousands of motorists who travel Michigan Road daily—the northwest-side area could be described as low-profile.

Kerry Michael Manders refers to Crooked Creek as “a hidden gem.” Boundary definitions for the neighborhood differ, but it covers loosely 10,000 acres north to south from West 79th Street to West 38th Street, and west to east from Cooper Road to the White River. Michigan Road bisects Crooked Creek.

Manders is leading an effort to establish Crooked Creek Cultural Campus near the northwest intersection of West 62nd Street and Michigan Road. The 71-year-old envisions a 200-seat theater and community center nestled in eight wooded acres across the road from the Michigan Road Branch of the Indianapolis Public Library.

Even with Newfields art museum and gardens, home furnishings retailer RH, Light of the World Christian Church and a location of Eastern Star Church within Crooked Creek’s boundaries, the area would be helped by a place where residents can get together, Manders said.

“The community has no real focal point,” he said.

The planned Crooked Creek Cultural Campus won’t be an overnight success. Manders predicts 2028 as the year for construction of the theater, and $21 million needs to be raised for the overall project.

But the president of the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus Inc. nonprofit can point to a pair of early wins. For starters, Manders worked with the Pike Township Residents Association to successfully lobby against proposed development of 3-1/2 acres sandwiched between two churches along Michigan Road. Two proposals that failed: an apartment complex and a storage facility.

Anticipating that more external ideas would arrive, Manders asked civic leader Joan SerVaas to purchase the land and donate it to the cultural campus cause. SerVaas, president of the Saturday Evening Post Society and owner of Indianapolis Healthplex, said “yes.”

SerVaas, daughter of late Indianapolis City-County Council President Beurt SerVaas, recalled a livelier era in the neighborhood.

“I went to Crooked Creek Elementary, and I don’t live very far from there,” she said. “A drugstore and bakeries and all of the things that used to be there are gone now. But the vision is to get this area to have a little bit more of a soul.”

Manders enlisted Ted Halsey, an Indianapolis native who’s worked as an architect in Denver since the 1980s, to work on initial plans for the building and grounds. Halsey said the land donated by SerVaas is a major step in the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus journey.

“That’s a very important element that says this has legitimate backing,” Halsey said.

Manders, who’s been an advocate for improvements in the neighborhood across the past three decades, has memories similar to SerVaas’.

“My parents built a home here when I was 9 years old, and I’ve lived here since then,” Manders said. “The little area at 60th and Michigan Road used to be a mom-and-pop, small-time Broad Ripple. I really loved my community.”

It’s a community known for racial diversity, partly because of subdivisions developed by and for Black families in the 1960s. Manders said he believes “city government just wasn’t interested in prioritizing” cultural amenities in the area.

For the planned cultural campus, Manders assembled a “visioning committee” that includes representatives of Newfields, Pike Performing Arts Center and Asante Art Institute of Indianapolis Inc.

Singer-actress Teresa Reynolds is a founding board member of Crooked Creek Cultural Campus.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to serve an area that’s been ignored for far too long,” Reynolds said.

In addition to theatrical productions, the building is expected to host community game nights, movie nights, book club meetings and coffee hours for discussions of current events.

Manders said he’s interested in bringing in a comic book artist to work with youngsters who want to create their own characters and storylines.

“Part of this is to build community,” he said.

Up next is completing the purchase of 4-1/2 acres west of the land donated by SerVaas. Together, the 8 acres make up an irregular polygon shape that touches West 62nd Street and Michigan Road.

Man on a mission

If you think the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus sounds like a long shot for success, Manders is familiar with that sentiment.

He also has a track record of proving doubters wrong.

In the mid-1990s, a subdivision was proposed next to Juan Solomon Park at the intersection of Fox Hill and Grandview drives. Manders led a successful effort to raise funds and purchase 22 acres to expand the park.

For more than 15 years, Manders lobbied for infrastructure to help pedestrians move along and across Michigan Road. In 2010, Mayor Greg Ballard acknowledged Manders’ efforts when announcing a Rebuild Indy project that added a sidewalk/trail along Michigan Road from West 86th Street to Cold Spring Road.

At the time, a WTHR-TV Channel 13 report described Manders as “the man who wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

In 1998, he tried to launch a Crooked Creek Community Campus at the intersection of West 60th Street and Michigan Road. Although that campus never became a reality, one of its wish list components—an Indianapolis Public Library branch—opened in 2018 at 6201 Michigan Road.

“Each time I felt compelled to take on these projects,” Manders said. “I feel like it’s a mission that I need to try to complete.”

SerVaas met Manders when he worked with her father on the Juan Solomon Park expansion.

“Kerry is a bulldog,” SerVaas said. “With the vision in sight, he’s going to do it over your dead body if he has to. … He gets swatted down, but he just keeps going and acts like that didn’t happen.”

Crooked Creek resident Colleen Heeter is a former vice president of development and advancement at Indiana Black Expo Inc. who’s working to raise funds for the cultural campus.

“Kerry is a go-getter,” Heeter said. “He’s just so focused. When he wants to do something, he is not going to stop until he does it.”

Architect Halsey also praised Manders.

“It’s more than just enthusiasm,” Halsey said. “There’s a real depth of purpose that has remained constant from the beginning.”

Creative spark

Part of the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus includes a railway path used by an interurban electric line operated by the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern traction company a century ago.

Manders said the path will be preserved as a walkway that separates the planned building from a planned outdoor amphitheater.

Reynolds, who grew up in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood just south of Crooked Creek, moved to Crooked Creek in 2018 after living in New York City. On the East Coast, she toured the world as a backing vocalist for “I Will Survive” singer Gloria Gaynor.

She presently sings in the group Teresa Reynolds & the Slicktones and acts as part of the Indianapolis Black Theater Co. established in 2023.

“I really love the area, but there are some drawbacks,” Reynolds said of Crooked Creek. “There are no offerings like what we’re trying to build. I think it will help bring some real cultural and creative arts to this underserved neighborhood.”

Manders selected Reynolds, an alum of Broad Ripple High School and Ball State University, as the first member of the visioning committee.

“It felt like a natural fit to be a part of something that’s trying to bring this to fruition right in my own backyard,” Reynolds said.

Heeter, who’s lived in the Crooked Creek neighborhood more than 30 years, said the cultural campus will accommodate all ages.

“Young children love to be able to perform and act and sing and dance,” Heeter said. “And parents love watching them. Adults also enjoy singing and dancing. It’s just a great venue that can bring everyone together to have a bunch of fun.”

Grassroots appeal

Heeter said she’s seeking corporate donations and foundation grants to help the cultural campus meet its $21 million goal.

Manders said $1 million will go toward securing the 4-1/2 acres not donated by SerVaas, and $20 million will be used for construction.

He credited Joe Calderon, a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, for pro bono work on the project’s rezoning process this spring.

Looking back at the Juan Solomon Park expansion, Manders said grassroots support fueled the fundraising of $450,000. By assembling an extensive list of supporters’ names, he had something to show people making decisions on larger amounts of money.

He’s confident history will repeat with the cultural campus.

“Send in your $5 or $10, your $100, your $1,000 or whatever,” Manders said. “But send it in and let us put your name on that list to encourage and inspire funders—both corporations and foundations—to support us.”•