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.
Located a block south of Washington, the convention center is the engine driving the boom.
Events held here drew more than 800,000 people in 2008, generating $430 million in direct spending, said Donald P. Welsh, CEO of the Indiana Convention & Visitors Association. That's up from 2007. "Projects like the Marriott are being delayed or halted in a lot of other places," he said.
Many construction projects downtown are expected to be completed before Indianapolis hosts the 2012 Super Bowl. The game will be played at Lucas Oil Stadium, which opened last year adjacent to the convention center. Activities during the two-week buildup to the game will be at the expanded convention center.
"The convention center really is the Golden Goose," said Cornelius "Lee" Alig, CEO of Mansur Real Estate Services, a real estate developer. "It brings people who would not otherwise be here, and who have time on their hands and money to spend."
Some signs of trouble
But signs of local economic struggles are starting to show up, said Marty Haughian, managing partner of Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery.
"We have had some cancellations of December events that aren't tied to convention business in our banquet facility," he said. Those cancellations likely are a reflection of the 32% jump in unemployment in the city from September 2007 to September 2008, and the state's 26% increase in bankruptcies from August 2007 to August 2008. Indiana had the nation's 14th-highest home foreclosure rate in November: One in every 615 homes was in foreclosure, according to Realty Trac.
Stan Evans has seen how the pinch has hit other parts of the city, which helped persuade him to change plans for the two-building Victoria Centre complex he's developing on Washington Street. The block is at the east end of the bustling strip and still in transition, with metal security gates stretched across the fronts of three vacant buildings to the east, while two others sit empty just west of his property.
Evans initially planned to use the first floor of the complex for retail and convert the upper floors into condos. Evans said he decided to change course and focus on developing office space.
"I had gotten a handful of commitments for the condos, but it wasn't adequate to make the financing work," he said. "Then the markets started to back away and slow down, and I didn't want to be swimming upstream in a tough condo market."
The two faces of Washington are visible from the Indianapolis Artsgarden, a glass and steel community gathering place that resembles a beehive built over the intersection of Washington and Illinois streets.
Looking west, the teeming sidewalks, the bustle of the convention center and the cranes hoisting steel for the new Marriott make it hard to remember that the nation is in a recession. The view to the east — with empty lots and a number of vacant, rundown buildings west of Pennsylvania — brings the reality of the times into a sharper focus.
But there is plenty of reason for hope, said Sweeney of Indianapolis Downtown Inc.
The eclectic, "retro-modern" renovation of the triangular, three-story Zipper Building on Washington east of Pennsylvania, is an example Sweeney and others hope will be a catalyst for more development.
When Broadbent Co., a developer of Midwest shopping centers, was looking to relocate its corporate headquarters, officials considered a site adjacent to its Clearwater Crossing center on the city's fast-growing north side. Instead, they chose to stay downtown in a nod to the company's long history there and a belief in the corridor's future, said Executive Vice President Joyce Bradley. The company moved into the renovated home earlier this year.
"We like the action downtown," Bradley explained. "We are hoping what we've done will inspire others around us, and we are already starting to see some of that."
Developer Alig said business and government leaders must not lose focus on the downtown.
"Cities are measured by the strength of their urban centers," Alig said.
Tim Evans is a reporter for The Indianapolis Star