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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAfter the fallout of the Great Recession, apartment development in downtown Indianapolis skyrocketed. Just in the last decade, the number of downtown apartment units has more than doubled to the current total of about 15,000 units.
Indianapolis and other major cities across the nation are trying to encourage apartment development, especially as downtowns face an existential crisis brought about by the pandemic—namely, the loss of office workers in their downtown cores to remote working. One of the hottest trends is to take existing office towers and convert them into apartment buildings. And it’s happening with other major commercial structures, like downtown malls.
We’re seeing that now in Indianapolis, with the conversion of the AT&T building and the plans for the Gold Building. The redevelopment of Circle Centre Mall very likely will have apartments, and as the city tries to find new uses for past-their-prime municipal properties, it’s often making residential uses a priority.
For this week’s edition of the podcast, we have a three-person panel to explore the reasons behind the recent surge, the city’s desire to encourage apartment development, and future prospects for continued development and how that could affect downtown. Joining us are apartment market specialist George Tikijian, real estate developer Eric Gershman and Scarlett Andrews, deputy mayor of economic development.
Click here to find the IBJ Podcast each Monday. You can also subscribe at iTunes, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify and anyplace you find podcasts.
You can also listen to these recent episodes:
IBJ Podcast: Pete the Planner on the new rules for saving
IBJ Podcast: At Legislature’s midpoint, which bills survived and which bills are toast?
IBJ Podcast: Is downtown safe? Ask two business owners who reached different conclusions.
IBJ Podcast: Downtown fixture Wheeler Mission on verge of big transition
IBJ Podcast: He stitched handbags in his Irvington basement, and now it’s a $1M business
Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ’s The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana’s business community.
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Is just me or is there some concern about this economy. I know we are all more productive working from home, and as employers we agree, because we don’t need to pay rent, and have to face our employees, and there problems on a daily bases.
We can shop on line, and have most everything delivered, so all we need are warehouses. We don’t need a car or if we do we can get one in 10 years rather than five. We don’t need the development of any new office buildings we just convert the ones we have in to apartments. We don’t need people to clean the office. or change the carpet or add new offices. actually another good thing; we won’t have to repair the streets as often because there is so much less traffic. All we need is a nice dog run.
” You have so many good things eat, drink and be merry”
Well, we kind of built out cities like a house of cards. Low density, low tax doesn’t work. If Central Indiana (including suburbs) doesn’t drastically increase its population density, we’ll just see new Lafayette Squares and Washington Squares pop up everywhere. We should be focused on high density & high quality mixed-used development. Most people should have the ability to walk or bike to work, run errands, go to the park, etc. Our SFH can car-first zoning mandates are especially prone to fads, lead to long commutes and isolation, and don’t generate enough tax revenue to up keep infrastructure.
As there should be. Downtown receives the lions share of ED dollars and efforts and the results have been decidedly lackluster.
Robert H, what you’re saying is true. However, it remains to be seen if our high-rise (or, in Indy’s case, midrise) apartment buildings catering to Millennials and Gen Zers aren’t also “especially prone to fads”.
The faddish segment of the population cares more about having boutique distilleries and Skee-ball emporia nearby than it does office jobs, and downtown Indy still sorta has that, but it’s certainly getting compromised by perceptions of homelessness and crime, let alone the comparative absence of office workers from 8-5 M-F since the pandemic. How long can these hip businesses hold out amidst the increasing sense that the meth-zombies are taking over? And if the hip businesses go away, what incentive do the youthful trendoids have in living downtown, when they can get more or less the same thing in Broad Ripple or Carmel and (at least in Carmel) generally feel safe?
Moving office space to residential living (when practical) is a great move. My only concern is that it would be even better to include a larger number of condominiums and not only rental apartments. Rentals are necessary, of course, but owner-occupied homes bring stability.
If you want to make downtown Indy residential friendly, the downtown areas need to bring in more grocery stores, all purpose stores, coffee shops and bodegas. Right now, you can’t do any significant shopping for essentials downtown other than Whole Foods limited stock, and CVS. All the clothing stores are leaving Circle Center. Take a look at New York, Chicago and other cities where downtown residential living is easy. Building apartments is one thing – having the infrastructure downtown so people don’t have to drive and shop in the suburbs is crucial. I lived in NYC for 9 years and could walk to everything. Indy has a lot of work to do in this regard.
I agree 100 on your assessment of what Indy needs to do to be similar to NYC downtown living. Indy actually already have the bones to do just that. Mass Ave and Fountain sq are good examples as well as The Bottleworks district. Eleven Park if built as planned will be another great example. Indy should also take ideas from its northern suburb Carmel on how they did with Midtown and do the same but on a larger scale. The new Elanco HQ would be perfect for that. Indy should also turn monument circle ⭕️ more into a pedestrian friendly neighborhood with European style shopping and street corner vendors ect
Indy has everything in place already
Rachel and Kevin,
Agreed with everything. Density is needed to attract the shops and stores
that downtown Indy needs badly.
** I would add that we still need to be very aggressive in trying to bring jobs
downtown also. That’s the key component to Live, Work, Play and creating density.**
I would add that downtown needs much more in terms of artistic architecture
also. It creates a more cultural vibe.
One area that should be redeveloped is Monument Circle. Probably no
piece of property that is more historic and important to the image of the entire
state than Monument Circle. The empty space right now is an eye sore.
Let Purdue, IU, Notre Dame, and other universities take that empty space and convert it for high tech entrepreneurs and artists to live, work, and play.
The students chosen to live there should be tops in their fields. Let them
live there for next to nothing ( for two years ) if they will keep their startups and work in downtown Indianapolis or within the city.
Bottom line, we must think outside the box to keep downtown Indianapolis
competitive with Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Milwaukee, St. Louis,
and other cities.
Rachael, I would say everything you’re suggesting was true as recently as 2019.
But let’s be honest: DT Indy has three grocery stores in the Mile Square. For a city of its size, that’s crazy high. Why would it support more unless another 15K people move in?
And who shops anymore, outside of an occasional recreational indulgence? Day-to-day shopping, outside of groceries, is increasingly done online.
Besides, have you been to Chicago lately? Crime in some places (New York and LA included) is probably overstated. It’s bad and getting worse, but not yet on par with 1980s levels. But Chicago is a whole different store. Water Tower Place on the Magnificent Mile already lost one of its two department stores right before COVID (Macy’s) and now the place is basically in receivership.
Trying to make Indy on par with NYC (a city with nearly twice the population of Indiana as a state) is a pipe dream. Besides, the NYC of 2023 is hardly something any city should aspire to, even if its crime is nowhere near as bad as Chicago’s. Indy should be a better Indy.
Downtown needs more grocery stores to support additional residential units. That’s going to blunt the car-dependent nature of this city (the point of living downtown).