Downtown Indianapolis Parking Lot Comparison: 2011 to 2018
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods on Feb 7th, 2019 | 4 comments
Back in 2012, Curt Ailes posted an article containing a few maps of the surface parking lots downtown. After these maps came up on twitter, I figured that now would be a good time to compare the lots to what currently exists.
First , I took the old lots and contrasted them with the new ones. The new configurations are shown in red below, whereas the 2011 parking lots are shown in blue:
Next, the more interesting map for our purposes. The parking lots shown in red are the ones from 2011 , while the blue ones are the existing lots:
There are fewer large blocks of...
Indy Needs an Open, Public City Hall
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods, New Development on Dec 19th, 2018 | 9 comments
Recent History
For most of the past 2 decades, Old City Hall was a jack-of-all trades. It was the site of the Indiana State Museum when I arrived here in 1999. Later, it became the temporary home of the Central Library, while the original one undertook an extensive renovation. After the library moved back to its original location, the City Hall saw several other temporary uses. During the 2012 Super Bowl, it housed a large public art exhibit called “Turf“. It was even home to Yelp’s Christmas Bazaar.
Its most recent incarnation was as “The Hall”. The Department of...
Helping with the Marion County Land Use Plan
Posted by Andrew Arenson in New Development on Dec 10th, 2018 | 30 comments
In the summer of 2018 I found myself sitting in a room with a small number of other people, making decisions about how land in Marion County should be used. I’m a computer person by trade with no background in land use planning. How did I end up here?
The Impetus
The Long-Range Planning group in Indianapolis’ Department of Metropolitan Development had a challenge: Tasked with not only updating the balkanized and aged Marion County Land Use Plan, but in keeping with the vision of Plan 2020, which includes enabling the broader community to bring their expertise and interests to the...
The Indianapolis’ Sidewalk Donut
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods, Pedestrian, Transit on Dec 3rd, 2018 | 32 comments
I work on map layers for Indianapolis, and recently I’ve been updating the sidewalk layer. Something that really jumps out is a donut that’s about 6-8 miles out from the center of the city which has very few sidewalks. Aaron Renn of the Urbanophile might call this the new donut. There are some noted exceptions here, especially within the excluded cities of Beech Grove and Lawrence. But, the city went through a ~2 decade period of purposely not building new sidewalks. Much of that development lies within this donut:
This area of the city was largely developed between the 1950’s and the...
Indiana: The State That Works. Twice!
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods on Nov 12th, 2018 | 7 comments
Recently, I was traveling with the family on I-70 just south of downtown. We hit a bad traffic snarl just to the west of the south split. The traffic jam allowed my wife to notice something amusing in the large “attractions” sign:
I didn’t notice this quirk at all. But, sure enough, Indiana Govt Cntr is listed on the same sign twice. Soon after that, we went down the list of many of the other attractions downtown that were left off due to this redundancy. I’m not sure if this says anything about anything, other than the sign makers really want people to know that this is the...
One Up, One Down…
Posted by Joe Smoker in Neighborhoods, New Development on Oct 24th, 2018 | 4 comments
There was a recent petition to demolish the old gymnasium building at 625 S Meridian to be replaced with…a surface parking lot, which was modified to be a “plaza”. This building is within the Regional Center, but not within an IHPC district, so it will likely be approved.
Somewhat ironically, a new petition as submitted for Regional Center Approval for a new building immediately adjacent to the above. These are separate lots and, I believe, separate owners, but it is sad to think that, in essentially the exact same location, it doesn’t make sense to re-purpose an...
Land Use Plans Are Not Sacred Texts
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods on Oct 4th, 2018 | 16 comments
Recently, a spate of reasonable proposals have been shot down by the Metropolitan Development Commission due to fears of over-densification. The MDC has been using previous neighborhood land use plans to defend their repeated denials. While it may be true that the most recent land use plan called for a different type of development, that does not mean that there can not be some wiggle room left for development of multi-family residences. The best recent example of this is in Fountain Square, starting on page 41. A run-down old tire shop could be redeveloped as a small duplex. Some renderings are shown...
A Proposal to Narrow Market Street
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods on Oct 4th, 2018 | 2 comments
The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Committee has posted a proposal (page 133) to narrow a portion of Market Street right downtown. This narrowing will also extend over in front of the City County Building, taking out the un-urban car drop off point. This portion of Market Street is just outside of the IHPC Jurisdiction, and I currently don’t have any renderings of it. I’ve attached the IHPC’s segment here:
...
DMD Open House
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods on Oct 4th, 2018 | 2 comments
Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development has a major public outreach event scheduled this Friday. I’m planning on attending. Here are the details:
October 5, 2018 6PM-9PM
Exhibition on City Planning (Harrison Center, 1505 N Delaware St)
And here is the promotional blurb:
Enjoy an evening of art, cast your vote for your favorite team in the Thriving Neighborhood Challenge, and let your voice be heard on FOUR major city plans: the Marion County Land Use Plan, Thrive Indianapolis, the White River Vision Plan, and IndyMoves! IndyGo will also be on hand with information on...
Nickel Plate Trail Possible for Future
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Bicycling, New Development, Transit on Aug 29th, 2018 | 8 comments
Yesterday, the Indy Star dropped one of the more enticing nuggets that I’ve seen in a while. A 50 mile long connected loop of a trail between the Monon, Midland Trace Trail, and Nickel Plate would at the very least help to provide an alternative to the traffic-clogged northeast corridor.
I’d encourage this trail development, and I would hope that they will still maintain the rail right-of-way. However, it must be noted that the Nickel Plate’s path is quite suburban in makeup. It would make more sense for the Monon Trail to be rail than for the Nickel Plate, but with the future Red...
