City Market proposals: Microbrewery, bicycle hub, agriculture showcase

Six groups are vying to lead a redevelopment effort for the struggling Indianapolis City Market. (Reporter Peter Schnitzler has all the details here.) Here’s a summary of the possibilities:

• The not-for-profit Riley Area Development Corp. has proposed a new Performing Arts Center and affordable housing complex for artists on the east and west wing sites. Riley’s proposal, which would include collaboration with the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis, also includes non-binding memorandums of understanding from 21 local arts organizations that expressed interest in the project.
• Chicago-based real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle seeks to expand the scope of City Market’s redevelopment, proposing a larger-scale project that would include a five-level parking deck to the north, the vacant Market Square Arena site and the Old City Hall at 202 N. Alabama. Jones envisions a three- to five-year process exploring plans to create what it calls a “festival retail food destination” at City Market. The company also suggests adding national chain restaurants such as Olive Garden or Ram Brew Pub to the current mix of local vendors. It also would investigate refurbishing the City Market’s 20,000-square-foot basement catacombs as a restaurant and building a 200-room hotel with ballrooms and conference rooms on the MSA site.
• Columbus, Ohio-based planning firm Kinzelman Kline Gossman proposes replacing the market’s wings with mixed-use “green” buildings and an outdoor performance venue, with a bike hub/shop, a "green” grocer, a microbrewery and wine bar. Kinzelman would tear down both wings. On the west side, it would build a three- to four-story building with a ground-floor retail or food anchor. On the east side, it proposes a public plaza with an 8,000-square-foot bicycle hub facility connected to the Cultural Trail.
• St. Louis-based developer McCormack Baron Salazar points out in its RFI response that “a comprehensive development plan is not realistic at this point.” It broadly wants to build a “Best of Indiana” market and establish the Indiana Center for Sustainable Agriculture, with room for a “small, highly adaptable black-box theater and/or cabaret studio space.” It proposal aims for energy savings from new window and insulation technologies and solar energy systems.
• Locally based architecture firm Rowland Design proposes a number of ideas for reusing the east and west Wings. Options include a public health facility in partnership with the IUPUI College of Public Health offering medical screenings and tests, a fitness center that transforms the historic central hall’s mezzanine into a year-round jogging track, a culinary school, and a pair of educational wellness centers focused on Indiana’s professional sports and Hoosier children.
• Locally based Tabbert Hahn Ping Global Strategies proposed an entertainment venue with a connected restaurant or bar that would seat 1,500 and host four or five shows weekly.

Which would you pick?