Downtown Indy launches marketing campaign to encourage people back to the Mile Square
In addition, on Friday and again on Sept. 11, dozens of community leaders will spend the day cleaning and sprucing up the area.
In addition, on Friday and again on Sept. 11, dozens of community leaders will spend the day cleaning and sprucing up the area.
The announcement comes after months of complaints from residents, workers and business owners that downtown has become unsafe following pandemic-related shutdowns and protests that turned violent earlier this summer.
The project, expected to cost as much as $550 million to construct, has been in the works for years as Kite and the city worked to reach an agreement.
IBJ reporters Samm Quinn and Anthony Schoettle spent a week talking with the leaders of downtown companies and learned that many are delaying plans to bring workers back to the office.
It could be months, or longer, before downtown bustles again with the office workers who help restaurants and other retailers thrive. And the wait might be a death knell for some of those retailers.
Organizers on Tuesday announced the formal launch of a business and community task force that will try to address issues facing downtown Indianapolis stemming from the pandemic and social unrest.
Host Mason King talks with Stadium Village Business Association President Erica Wells and Mayor Joe Hogsett’s chief of staff, Thomas Cook, about how the city can help downtown and downtown businesses rebuild after the one-two punch of coronavirus and riots.
The curfews were a reaction to violence, looting and vandalism that occurred downtown the previous weekend, following peaceful protests about racial inequality and police actions against African Americans.
The most significant theft that has occurred is not that of liquor or merchandise; the looters, by their actions, are stealing the credibility of the good people peacefully protesting a lengthy history of opportunity denied to people of color and those without means.
Decisions are impossible to make when leadership fails to listen to the community; fails to communicate a comprehensive plan; and falls into a reactive, not proactive, stance on protecting our community.
We can and will address the concerns of citizens and business owners grappling with the damage to public and private spaces caused by last weekend’s violence. But we cannot do so without simultaneously wrestling, and besting, the historically tolerated race disparities that lie at the heart of that violence.
It’s hard to find words for the horror that is the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, just as it is hard to comprehend how the anger over that death—and too many others—led to so much destruction in downtown Indianapolis. But IBJ asked several community leaders to give it a shot. Here’s what they wrote.
The one-two punch of the pandemic and protest-related violence raises questions about whether downtown can recover. Experts and community leaders say yes—but only with concerted effort and strong leadership.
WISH usually has one crew on Saturday nights, but on May 30, it had four. WISH went live outside its normal newscasts more than any other station—which is easier for it to do than any other station because it lacks a major network affiliation.
Get the latest news on protests in the Indianapolis area against police violence in this ongoing series of updates available outside IBJ’s paywall.
Several business owners in the city’s central business district and others along Massachusetts Avenue have enlisted staff members and local artists to paint murals and messages on the plywood covering the facades of riot-damaged buildings.
The Stadium Village Business Association, which represents more than 200 businesses south of downtown, decried the property damage caused by weekend riots and a “lack of leadership” from city officials.
Trump said he was recommending that governors deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets.”
On what would likely be a day of people returning to work, downtown streets were eerily quiet, aside from a few dozen people milling around, taking pictures of the boarded-up stores.
The owners of Centos Shoes, Red’s Classic Barber Shop and J. Benzal Menswear talked to IBJ about the damage their companies suffered after a violent weekend downtown and how they plan to move forward.