Before and after: Partnership sprucing up MLK corridor

A partnership between the city and nonprofit groups to spruce up the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street corridor is yielding results. One visible example is the retail building between 27th and 28th streets across the street from the U.S. Post Office branch. The Department of Metropolitan Development partnered with Local Initiatives Support Corp., Flanner House and Business Owners Initiative of Indiana on the new brick work and awnings for the building. The improvements, paid in part by revenue from a tax-increment finance district covering the area, are part of a pilot program "created to assist existing businesses and to create momentum for improvements" to buildings along the corridor, said John Bartholomew, a DMD spokesman. The nonprofit Flanner House, which is headquartered a few blocks south of the building, is administering the program. The work on 2701 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. was paid for with $27,000 from the United Northwest Area TIF district, $25,000 from the Local Initiatives Support Corp., and $5,000 from the property owner. (Property records list the owner as the Elizabeth Williams Life Estate & Revocable Living Trust.) If the owner sells within two years, the TIF investment would be assessed against the property, Bartholomew said.