Near South Side Apartment Proposal

Developer Craig Von Deylen has applied for a zoning variance on the Near South Side along Madison Avenue (page 7) to construct an apartment complex in an empty lot. Interestingly, the Concord Community Plan calls for commercial property to be installed at this location, however, the staff report mentions the large quantity of unused commercial real estate in the area. It’s a good idea to adjust to current demands for accommodating residential infill, which is a more promising market at this time. Shown below is a Preliminary Site Plan and rendering:

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The land use plan is relatively standard suburban form. It’s unfortunate that Madison Avenue does not have parallel parking lanes, which hampers the quality of its urban infill projects. However, the proposal has the potential to be one of the most significant investments along the former “Miracle Mile” corridor.

Comments 7

  • The Madison Ave corridor is definitely one of the weakest (probably the weakest in my opinion) of all the near downtown neighborhoods. Its mind-boggling lack of walking and biking amenities is absolutely killing it. Pretty much every other side of town has a way to get in that isn’t a high-speed arterial except this side.

    It would be really nice to have destinations in this area, but until they are accessible with a nice walk or bike ride, I’ll continue to avoid this area.

    As for its suburban form, it pretty much looks like every apartment complex heading south on Madison because that is the only design that works on such an auto dominant road.

  • Yep. What he said.

  • Meridian and East Streets aren’t too bad north of Raymond. South of that, Meridian gets dicey, and East is awful south of Garfield Park. Madison was a former streetcar line all the way out to the County Line, so there are semblances of historic urban form along it. That’s a major reason why the red line proposal follows it out to Greenwood.

    A major problem with the current form of this close-to-downtown section of Madison Avenue is that it was not developed until after World War II. Map Indy still shows farmland dotting portions of the street all the way up to Southern Avenue in 1956. But I think it still has potential. Removing the center turn lanes and adding in 2 rows of parallel parking could do wonders for calming it a bit.

  • Newer version of everything along Beachway Dr north of Rockville. You really could just plop it down anywhere and it looks like that’s what they did.

  • I think Madison avenue can be like north avenue in Chicago if they (the city of indy)just open up the street more to small businesses, more side walks for street shopping and convenience friendly for neighborhoods.

  • With the big K-Mart closing that is only a block or two north of this site, there are some big opportunities for different types of development in this section of Madison. If a few more apartment proposals go in on some of the large, nearby vacant parcels, it could start changing the area pretty quickly. Definitely roadway re-design would be needed to add good sidewalks and some trees / landscaping between residential buildings and the roadway.

    There are some definite plusses for the area: its very close to Garfield Park (3 – 5 blocks from the SW corner of the park); a mile and a half from Fountain Square; two miles from downtown. Maybe the changes could start happening and this area could become a decent area for some higher density residental.

  • What a strange use for the site of an old Dollar General that burned down at least seven or eight years ago. This is mid-block construction, right? As awful as everyone says the pedestrian experience is on Madison Avenue, you can still see evidence that it might at one time have been less of a thoroughfare, by the old, pedestrian oriented storefront buildings at the intersection of Madison and Southern (southwest corner), where Brill Road splays out, just a few blocks to the north of this site. The southeast corner of Madison and Southern is also a large vacant lot, which may someday get developed into something a bit more pedestrian-scaled than this project we’re seeing here. Hope springs eternal.

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