Articles

Ralston Square project would honor city’s first planner

A local development team is working on a 10-story, mixed-use tribute to a man who helped design the original plan for Indianapolis,
Alexander Ralston. The $60 million project, dubbed Ralston Square, would feature a 150-room hotel, 55 condos, a 617-space
parking garage and 41,000 square feet of retail space.

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Loss of institute may polarize Statehouse debate: Board considers shuttering respected government research organization

If the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute remains shuttered due to a lack of funds, the public won’t notice immediately. After all, the Indianapolis-based organization focused on long-term analysis of complicated communal questions, such as how to equalize property taxes, diversify state pensions or finance public schools. But taxpayers eventually will feel the impact. For 20 years, the institute has played a key role in Statehouse debate, helping frame major issues with hard facts and figures that conservatives and liberals alike…

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Thoughts on Ralston Square?

Here are two renderings of the proposed Ralston Square project. The $60 million South Street project, named in honor of the original planner for Indianapolis, would feature a 150-room hotel, 55 condos, a 617-space parking garage and 41,000 square feet…

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Penn Centre, in color

What do you think of the latest rendering of Penn Centre? The plans, designed by Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf, call for a 240-room Le Meridien hotel, 150-room aloft hotel,…

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City denies Bush Stadium reports

The city has not decided whether to tear down Bush Stadium, spokeswomen for the mayor and the Department of Metropolitan Development said this afternoon, denying news reports. WTHR reported on its Web…

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Penn Centre wins approval

The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission gave its unanimous approval last night for Penn Centre, a massive hotel, residential and restaurant development across from Conseco Fieldhouse. The next step is to add more…

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A cleaner Canal

The city has agreed to pay a Kokomo company up to $423,000 to clean the Central Canal from 11th Street to the White River. The deal with biosolids management firm Merrell Bros….

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R.I.P. Marquis Tower?

A 24-year-old’s dream for a twisting downtown apartment tower has run into a brick wall. Jaron Garrett couldn’t raise enough money to exercise contracts on the run-down properties he had hoped to…

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Fleeing the … suburbs?

August Mack Environmental said today it will move its corporate headquarters from Castleton to downtown’s Lexington at Meridian. The Indianapolis-based environmental consulting company plans to take 16,200 square feet in the former home…

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Skewers of meat and more

A few nuggets to break up an otherwise slow day for real estate news:

All-You-Can-Eat Meat: The deal is done to bring the upscale Brazilian Steakhouse Fogo de Chão (fo-go dèe shoun, or fire…

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Developers pitch Meridian Street infill

Two local developers have plans to replace downtown parking lots along Meridian Street with new mixed-use buildings. Jupiter Land Group, headed by restaurateur Rick Coombes, wants to build a five-story retail…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Give me the site, but hold the uninvited video

I can still remember when vacation movies were captured on 8mm film and had to be shown on jerky little projectors with hot bulbs that gave off ozone by the bucketful. Fascinating to the family that took the movies, but deadly dull to everyone else. Then along came video cameras that were much more portable and could show their movies on the family VCR. They had many advanced features, such as zoom, stop action, and even dubbing. And they were…

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Premier not afraid of going head-to-head with Simon

Premier Properties USA Inc. is preparing to go head-to-head with Simon Property Group Inc., the nation’s largest and most
powerful mall developer, across the street from Simon’s top-performing The Fashion Mall at Keystone. Premier is proposing
a 2.3-million-square-foot, $750 million development at 86th Street and Keystone Avenue called Venu.

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Wholesale District developments would replace parking lots

Now that most of the existing buildings along South Meridian Street downtown have been rehabbed for condos, restaurants or
hotels, developers are eyeing surface parking lots. Local companies filed plans recently to replace two such gaps in the Wholesale
District streetscape with mixed-use projects.

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To weather downturn, housing industry rolls out incentives

For most of this decade, the Indianapolis residential real estate market enjoyed a very good run. But now it’s muddling through
the doldrums just like the rest of the country, and builders are pulling out all the stops to avoid getting stuck with inventory.

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INVESTING: Market isn’t as strong as major indexes show

Experts are doing their best to convince us everything is right with the world again. A few hundred billion dollars in liquidity here, a few cuts in the discount and fed rates there, and we’re back in Shangri La, right? My question to all of the experts then is this: Why isn’t it working? On the surface, things seem like they are getting back in shape. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 are within 1 or 2 percent of new…

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IPS pledge: Fence is temporary

The second- and third-floor parking levels of the Indianapolis Public Schools headquarters will remain surrounded on three sides by a chain-link fence at least until the spring, a school district official said today….

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Fountain Square’s artistic alleys

Earlier this year, real estate agent and Fountain Square resident Phil Barcio began the Fountain Square Mural Project, an effort to transform the neighborhood’s alleys to help prevent crime and…

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No more Nothing But Noodles

Arizona-based Nothing But Noodles has closed its local stores on 96th Street and near the IUPUI campus. No one answered the phone at either of the stores or at the Indianapolis corporate…

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Taco battle is brewing

Look out, Taco Bell. California-based Del Taco, the country’s No. 2 taco chain, is planning to open 16 new restaurants in Indianapolis. The chain, which already has about 500 restaurants in 14…

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