Plans for $32M development near Herron-Morton Place neighborhood move forward

A $32 million plan to replace a troubled low-income housing project at 16th Street and Park Avenue cleared a final hurdle Wednesday at a hearing of the Metropolitan Development Commission. The development arm of the not-for-profit Indianapolis Housing Agency, Insight Development Corp., plans to redevelop the complex to better connect with the Herron-Morton Place neighborhood. The agency bought the failed co-op called Caravelle Commons in 2009. The 1970s suburban-style complex at 1643 N. Park Ave. sits in the middle of a historic urban neighborhood and invites crime with dead-end streets and fenced-in apartment homes that surround crowded parking lots. The more urban replacement, slated to break ground in October, is dubbed 16 Park on renderings from locally based Domain Architecture (click on the images for larger versions). The housing agency, which administers the federal Section 8 program, used a grant of about $400,000 from a city housing trust fund to acquire the property and begin drawing up redevelopment plans. The agency has won stimulus grants and low-income housing tax credits it expects to apply to the project’s cost. An earlier post looking at efforts to target blight along 16th Street is here.