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A downtown building acquired earlier this year by an affiliate of Purdue University is set to become a hub for the school’s Indianapolis students.
The 27,000-square-foot, two-story building at 518-520 Indiana Ave. is being outfitted as a student center ahead of the start of the university’s fall semester on Aug. 22. The Purdue’s board of trustees voted Friday morning to affirm the decision to move forward with the improvements.
The property, which Purdue spent $4.5 million to buy in January, will offer the school’s 3,000 Indianapolis students a mix of study areas, social areas, a writing lab, library spaces, a disability resource center and a first-floor mini-market.
Purdue officials likened the Indianapolis facility to the Krach Leadership Center, a secondary student union for students in West Lafayette that serves as the home for several student organizations, including student government, as well as the school’s writing laboratory.
The new student center comes as Purdue continues work on its first ground-up building on the 28-acre campus. The 15-story Academic Success Building at the southwest corner of West Street and Indiana Avenue will offer housing, classrooms, retail areas and laboratory space when it opens in 2027.
Earlier this summer, Purdue unveiled a 50-year master plan for Indianapolis that envisions up to 12 mid-rise buildings and additional spaces throughout the city.
Michael Cline, senior vice president for administrative operations at Purdue, said the student center “creates a little bit of vibrancy” on Indiana Avenue and is merely the first step in the effort to continue establishing a physical presence for Purdue downtown.
“We are trying to be practical about how fast we can develop the 28 acres that we have versus the immediate needs that we see,” Cline said. “When the building was for sale, we looked at it as an opportunity—we didn’t know it was going to be a student center when we bought it, but we felt that it was a great location for us in the long-term.”
Cline will become chief operating officer for the Indianapolis location next January.
Purdue is expected to occupy the entirety of the Indiana Avenue building, which for the past several years had been home to tech company BrewLogix and law firm Schultz & Pogue LLP. The property occupies a roughly 3/4-acre site across West Street from the primary Purdue at Indianapolis campus.
Cline said when the university grows into the Academic Success Center, it will “continue to have things in the student center, but we’ll have more flexibility with the bigger building.”
David Umulis, senior vice provost for Indianapolis, said the student center is key to Purdue’s effort to establish an identity in the city, because it gives students a dedicated space outside the classroom to connect with one another. But it also creates an opportunity to see the school’s growing footprint from a different perspective, he said.
“This creates a space that is focused on student growth and belonging,” he said. “But when you’re in there and you look out the windows, you don’t see a classical campus. When you’re in the conference rooms on the north you look out, you see the Kurt Vonnegut Museum, and you see the Madam Walker Theatre, and you see the flow of traffic out West Street. … It’s different than a classical campus.”
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