Indianapolis builds in anticipation of recession's end
INDIANAPOLIS -- This city hasn't escaped the economic turmoil rocking the USA.
But the reality of lost jobs, tight credit and home foreclosures is easy to overlook amid the robust activity along a downtown span of Washington Street.
The boom is the product of a downtown filled during the day with thousands of corporate, retail and government workers, and at night with out-of-towners attending events at the Indiana Convention Center.
Much of that action is centered on a seven-block stretch of Washington Street — the downtown's main east-west thoroughfare — that's home to the Indiana Statehouse and government complex and two corporate headquarters. The short span also includes five hotels, a wide variety of restaurants and bars and a mall.
At the west end is White River State Park, which includes two museums, an IMAX theater, an outdoor concert amphitheater and the Indianapolis Zoo.
"When you think of 'Main Street,' you think of a sense of place, the richness of the urban fabric and a diversity of uses — a gathering place for the community," said Terry Sweeney, vice president of the non-profit Indianapolis Downtown Inc.
"Washington Street is all of that and more."
On the National Road
The street is part of the National Road, the first federally funded road built in the U.S. more than 100 years ago. It connected Maryland to the Ohio River and was called "The Main Street of America."
Today, Washington Street is thriving even as other parts of the city and the nation struggle, Sweeney said. Officials hope new construction projects will be finished right as the nation pulls out of recession.
At the west end, a 34-story, 1,500-room Marriott hotel is being built in conjunction with a project to double the size of the convention center. A mile to the east, a new interchange will make Washington Street the gateway to downtown from Interstates 65/70. The bookend projects are among $485 million in work to be completed by 2012, Sweeney said. He said that work follows $900 million in public and private development in the area since 1995.
