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If you’ve been around Indianapolis long enough, you won’t question the significance of the Indianapolis institution Long’s Bakery.
Long’s Bakery has been part of Indianapolis since 1955. Founded by Carl and Mildred Long, it is now owned and operated by their great-granddaughter, Crystal Smith, and her family. No one can deny that Long’s is the kind of place that endures because it is woven into the fabric of Indianapolis.
In April, Smith appeared before the Indianapolis Board of Public Works, on which I sit as a City-County Council appointee. She was not in attendance to oppose the West 16th Street bridge reconstruction, as she understood its necessity. She simply wanted more transparency and, more important, certainty from the city. She asked whether any city leader had considered what two years of construction would mean for her family’s business.
It’s a timely and justified question, one our entire community must confront.
Construction improvements disrupt access, reduce visibility and redirect traffic for months, sometimes years at a time. For large businesses, that’s an inconvenience. For a family business operating on thin margins, it is existential. For Long’s Bakery, it’s meant a 25% reduction in business during the first two weeks of closure alone.
The 16th Street bridge project is only one of many sizable projects the city of Indianapolis is undertaking to address years of deferred maintenance and chronic underinvestment.
Which means this challenge will only grow. The city is in the middle of a tough but necessary reckoning with how Indianapolis funds its infrastructure, creating expanded revenue streams (like the wheel tax) and finding smarter ways to deploy existing ones. As we build the financial foundation for the next generation of investment, we can’t afford to lose sight of what that investment costs the businesses already anchoring our neighborhoods.
The city’s current approach to the 16th Street Bridge is to manage what it can control, making sure the bridge is completed on time. But for businesses like Long’s Bakery, managing the schedule isn’t the whole answer.
Part of the problem is structural. Federal and state transportation dollars come with specific rules about what they can and cannot fund. Sustaining a small business through two years of construction doesn’t make the list. It’s not a failure of intent; it’s a limitation built into how infrastructure funding works. Expecting transportation agencies to solve an economic problem with transportation dollars simply isn’t realistic.
But Indianapolis has an advantage most cities don’t.
Few places in the country have a philanthropic community with the depth, civic engagement and track record of impact that the Indianapolis nonprofit community boasts. It’s a significant reason why Indianapolis punches above its weight on quality of life, arts, education and community development.
As the city’s infrastructure investment accelerates, an unintended consequence is emerging in the neighborhoods where that work is happening, and it’s exactly the kind of gap Indianapolis’ philanthropic community is uniquely positioned to fill. Not as charity, but as a strategic investment in the neighborhood businesses that give our city its character.
One approach worth exploring is a dedicated construction impact fund, a public-private partnership that coordinates between project teams and affected business corridors. This partnership would pool public and philanthropic dollars into a fund that provides direct financial assistance to small businesses impacted by significant construction projects. The evidence from cities that have tried this is clear: Small business owners consistently identify direct financial support as the most effective tool for navigating construction disruptions.
Crystal Smith didn’t ask for the project to stop. She asked to be seen. That’s a reasonable request and one our community has a real opportunity to address.•
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Haake, an urban planner, is a member of the Indianapolis Board of Public Works.
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