Marion County health care agencies plan east-side investments

Marion County’s Public Health Laboratory sits in the basement of an eight-story, 1968 retrofitted office building at 3838 N. Rural St. known as the Hasbrook Building.

The aging structure and technology and its small footprint have caused headaches: During the pandemic, for example, the Marion County Health Department had to contract out testing, and the data had to be entered manually because the department’s systems didn’t talk to one another.

“To be quite honest, we’ve just outgrown this facility,” Dr. Virginia Caine, chief medical officer of the Marion County Health Department, told IBJ.

But this summer, the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County will break ground on a multiyear, $170 million facilities improvement plan—the largest investment in the agency’s structures in decades—beginning with a new public health lab. Those involved in the project say it will bring a sense of revitalization, health access and safety to a community that has been neglected for decades, as well as a state-of-the-art lab that will increase the county’s medical testing capabilities.

Health and Hospital Corp. operates the Marion County Health Department, Eskenazi Health and Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services. The first phase of its investment in a campus near the intersection of North Keystone Avenue and East 38th Street, in the Avondale Meadows neighborhood, will also include a revamp of the department’s vital records department and the relocation of the Bell Flower Clinic, a testing site for sexually transmitted infections.

For Caine, a specialist in infectious diseases who steered the county’s response to COVID-19, the expansion is important because it will allow her team to better respond to the next widespread virus.

“It’s unfortunate, but … they’re coming about every two to three years if you think about it,” Caine said. “We had H1N1, we had the Zika virus, the Ebola virus, the monkeypox. Just an incredible amount of viral agents that are taking this country by storm.”

The planned lab will be designated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as biosafety level 3, which means it can deal with deadly diseases that are contracted through inhalation. That kind of lab requires special airflow equipment that replaces potentially contaminated air with clean air, as well as self-locking doors to prevent general access.

The lab will be one of the only biosafety level 3 labs in the state.

“When you’re starting to test for things that you don’t know how they spread, you don’t know the potential contamination that could be happening, a BSL 3 lab is really important,” said Luke Leising, founder of Indianapolis-based Guidon Design, the architectural firm for the project. Guidon has handled other health care and lab projects, which Leising said are particularly complicated due to the need for hyper-specific temperature control, tight security and airflow that prevents harm when dealing with disease and strong chemicals.

The lab will increase the Marion County Health Department’s testing-capacity space from 6,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet, Leising said. That increase, plus the ability to do more testing in-house, will create additional jobs.

The lab will also be used for environmental testing and to run STD tests from the soon-to-be relocated Bell Flower Clinic, said Paul Babcock, CEO of Health and Hospital Corp. In addition, he said, the same building will include the vital records department, which holds birth and death certificates, in a “modern, easily accessible facility” along IndyGo’s rapid transit Purple Line, which is projected to open late this year.

But the new lab is just one piece of the planned campus overhaul. Later projects, slated through 2026, include a new location for the agency’s security hub, a new headquarters for Indianapolis EMS and a renovation of the Marion County Health Department’s headquarters.

Officials say they’ve already seen evidence that improving the campus will be good for the neighborhood and clients.

In 2022, water pipes burst at Bell Flower Clinic’s current location inside Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital, on the western edge of downtown. That necessitated a temporary move to Marion County Health Department space in the Johnson Building, 3901 Meadows Drive, near the Hasbrook Building. The clinic operated there for at least six months.

Caine said the department was surprised that the clinic saw a “significant increase in the number of clients” during its short stay in that building, named for former Marion County Health Department Director Dr. Frank Johnson Jr.

Additionally, Caine said, preliminary surveys conducted in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the best location for the public health facilities found that most respondents believed the east-side site was conveniently located.

“I think it’s going to be a huge catalyst in this area for just any urban redevelopment,” Caine told IBJ.

The Health and Hospital Corp. has a long history with Avondale Meadows.

Development began there in 1947 and boomed with post-World War II housing demand, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. But by the 1980s, the neighborhood had become blighted.

The Health and Hospital Corp. stepped in about 1990, purchasing a vacant building for offices and clinics. The neighborhood was soon named an urban enterprise zone, a state designation intended to promote economic activity. In 2022, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett designated the East 38th Corridor a Lift Indy neighborhood.

The area has become a key location for health care services, and Babcock said it’s important to the agency that any expansion stay there.

Health and Hospital Corp. “is very invested in the east side, and we want to continue to do that,” he said. Eskenazi Health recently opened a health care center on East 38th Street near Arlington Avenue.

Greg Garrett of the Alliance for Northeast Unification said the increase in development in the area, especially with the coming Purple Line, causes “growing pains” and “grumblings” but is ultimately overwhelmingly positive.

“I think [residents have] got a lot of faith in Health and Hospital and what their goals are doing, especially with the new Eskenazi [Health] Center on 38th and Arlington,” Garrett said.

Leading up to the start of construction, a representative from Health and Hospital Corp. hosted at least five community meetings for stakeholders, including churches, schools, businesses, neighborhood associations, Indianapolis city government and public safety agencies.

The laboratory will replace a strip mall, which the Health and Hospital Corp. purchased in November. A few businesses will be forced to close or move due to the development.

An increase in security, lighting and the implementation of a new design standard will elevate nearby development and create a greater feeling of safety, said Leising, of architect Guidon.

“All of that comes together to really up the game of that neighborhood,” he said.•