Health district takes shape ahead of IU Health hospital completion

Near-north-side residents are accustomed to big businesses showing up, saying they have plans to improve the area’s low life expectancy and poor health outcomes, releasing a few reports and leaving.

But the Indy Health District is different, said Jamal Smith, executive director of the recently established nonprofit that is dedicated to reducing health inequity across Indianapolis. The Indy Health District stretches from St. Clair Street north to 38th Street, encompassing 1,500 acres and including historic neighborhoods, Indiana University Health’s planned campus, and commercial and industrial zones.

The district is a collaboration between Indiana University Health, the IU School of Medicine, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Citizens Energy Group, Ivy Tech Community College, and the neighborhoods of Crown Hill, Historic Flanner House Homes, Highland Vicinity, Meridian Highland and Ransom Place.

Smith has been working with neighborhood leaders since 2019, and one priority has risen to the top: a grocery store. The area is classified as a food desert, a geographic area where residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious food.

“We’re hell-bent on bringing that grocery store alive,” Smith said.

Cleo’s Bodega Grocery and Café, at 2432 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St., is the area’s only fresh-food option. The small store has operated since 2019 in rent-free space on the grounds of nonprofit Flanner House. All produce comes from Flanner’s 2-acre farm and two commercial greenhouses, providing organic produce at low cost.

A spokesperson for the district said leaders value and appreciate the role Flanner House plays and want to support existing neighborhood resources.

But a full-scale, commercially viable grocery store is the No. 1 tangible outcome residents want from the Indy Health District. However, the district’s overall goals are more complex. For example, life expectancy at birth for the five neighborhoods within the district is 69 years.

That’s about five years shorter than Marion County’s life expectancy as a whole and more than a decade lower than that of some suburbs north of Indianapolis. The collaborative effort aims to counteract that outcome long term by working to improve access to housing, health care, education, employment and nutritious food.

The district declined to say how much money is being invested in the effort. Each member organization has made a financial commitment, a spokeswoman for the district said, but she declined to disclose the amounts.

Smith called the work “abnormally expensive” and “really complex.”

It’s part of IU Health CEO Dennis Murphy’s commitment to having an impact on the community surrounding the $4.3 billion campus the health care system is building. That campus accounts for 44 acres of the 1,500-acre health district, the creation of which Murphy and other leaders announced nearly a year ago.

He proclaimed then that “if we only build a great hospital, we will have failed.”

James Whitfield, leader of the Highland Vicinity Neighborhood Association, said he reached out to IU Health in an email when construction began on the campus.

As locals watch the buildings go up, he said, they also want to know what jobs and community benefits might come from the investment.

“We want it to be a win-win situation,” he told IBJ.

The start of the lofty, long-term goal of reversing negative health outcomes has included investment in trails, affordable housing, workforce development and the creation of a traveling farmers market to provide nutritious foods residents need while they wait for a grocery store.

“Because of my ZIP code, my life expectancy is determined, and it is reduced significantly—we’re talking as much as almost 20 years—because of lack of access to healthy food choices, lack of access to care,” Danita Hoskin, president of the Crown Hill Neighborhood Association, told IBJ. “In this health district, we now have a way to address those challenges.”

The Indy Health District isn’t the first of its kind. Hospital systems in other large cities have created similar initiatives to improve their surrounding communities, which Smith took some inspiration from. Those include University Circle in Cleveland and 3CDC in Cincinnati.

However, Indy Health District is the largest by about 500 acres. That’s because leaders from University Circle told Smith they cut off their boundaries prematurely, creating a divider between “haves and have nots.” He said encompassing the five neighborhoods surrounding the hospital allows the system to better understand and address the social factors that play into health outcomes.

Early investments

Vicky Roberts, the 73-year-old interim president of the Meridian Highland Neighborhood Association, has lived there 30 years. She’s already seen big changes in the area.

“The houses that were empty and vacant are being flipped, but then some of them are still sitting empty because they belong to speculators or outside investors,” Roberts told IBJ. “That’s actually pricing some of the people who used to live here out of the neighborhood, which worries some people.”

Smith, the health district’s leader, said his team was reminded early on about the damage really large investments have made in neighborhoods. He said residents told him stories about longtime residents being pushed out by rising property taxes amid increased desirability for new or renovated housing units.

“They made us, the Indy Health District, be even more sensitive to how we approached the evolution of the district,” he said.

Early investments in the district’s housing are focused on affordable and workforce housing, including homeownership.

This month, Indy Health District stakeholders gathered to break ground on an $8 million project at the intersection 22nd and Illinois streets, which lies in Meridian Highland. The project, which will have 26 units in a mix of town houses and condos, was developed by IU Health in partnership with the Near North Development Corp. and the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership.

A $32 million project called M22 is slated for the intersection of 22nd and Meridian streets. That complex will include 116 affordable and workforce housing units. Workers began demolition and environmental remediation at the site this month.

Nearly 700 units of housing—apartments, duplexes, town houses and single-family homes—are planned or have been recently completed in the area. The largest of those are the 244-unit Wesley Place, which opened near the IU Health campus in mid-2023, and Hall Place, a 308-unit adjacent property developed by Indianapolis-based Arrow Street Development and Carmel-based J.C. Hart.

Hoskin, the Crown Hill neighborhood leader, lives on the same block where she was born. Her family has lived in the neighborhood since 1952. Her parents moved to the east side when she was growing up, but in adulthood she found her way home.

She sees a similar pattern of generational commitment and community among her neighbors.

Getting a grocery

Hoskin is passionate in her belief that families shouldn’t be fed from gas stations and discount stores, which she said carry salt- and sugar-laden foods that lead to hypertension and diabetes.

According to data from IU Indianapolis’ The Polis Center, more than 54% of the designated district is a food desert. An area is considered a food desert when the nearest grocery store is more than one road mile away and the area has a high poverty rate or low median household income. That percentage represents 7,239 residents.

For now, the Indy Health District is trying to fill the gap with the Floating Farmers Market, which works with nonprofit mobile market Harvest 2 Home. Hoskin manages the market, which visits different neighborhoods in the area weekly. All visitors receive a $5 voucher with the opportunity to get another $10 if they go through a free health screening at the market.

Smith is glad the neighborhood is embracing the temporary market. But the path to establishing a permanent large grocery store is trickier.

Doing so starts with increasing the area’s population density so grocery chains view the area as financially viable, Smith said. Funders and anchors might need to subsidize the investment, he added.

Because development like this moves slowly, Smith said his job exists in a middle space where he’s often telling big institutions to “hurry up” but asking neighbors to “be patient.”

“Look, the grocery store is not going to happen tomorrow. I need you to be patient with me,” Smith said.•