The Marietta Progresses and Raises New Questions About Mass Ave Infill.
Posted by Eric McAfee in Neighborhoods, New Development on Dec 11th, 2016 | 23 comments
A few years ago, I reported on what might at the time have seen like a pretty run-of-the-mill transaction: the Marott Center downtown getting sold by its law-firm owners to a company known as Gershman Partners. It was a long-established, smartly preserved building along Massachusetts Avenue that survived from its heyday. And at the end of 2013, it changed hands.
No big deal, right? The crux of the matter is that a the law partners who had refurbished and then owned Marott Center for years turned the property over to real estate interests. At that point in time, Marott was just an office building...
Marott Center Addition Proposal
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods, New Development on Sep 30th, 2014 | 24 comments
An interesting new proposal has been posted on the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Council website for a mixed-use 4 story building fronting Massachusetts Avenue. The address for the lot is actually 333 N Delaware. The parking lot will remain on Delaware for now, but this building looks promising to me:
Here is the site plan. Note the potential for curb bump out where the silly pedestrian island currently sits. Removing these dedicated and lightly-used turns for vehicles will only help Mass Ave’s pedestrian infrastructure:
The rest of the renderings are shown below:
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College and Massachusetts: A Critical Intersection
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods, New Development, Transit on Aug 21st, 2014 | 8 comments
The corner of College, Mass, and St. Clair has been on my radar for years now, as it currently features one solid newer building and 5 open lots:
Recently, there have been a few different proposals to change the status quo on the corner, which could become a critical link between downtown and Broad Ripple. First up is a mixed use proposal on the Southeast corner by Milhaus, which appears to be a solid infill project:
On the southwestern corner, a much-less inspired proposal was recently tabled by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission. The proposal included a surface parking lot at...
Saving Special Places
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Neighborhoods, New Development on Jun 4th, 2014 | 10 comments
Last Saturday, I spent some time in the back of Chatham Tap, among all of the old brick buildings near Mass Ave. I was commenting with my friends about how special this part of town is. It’s easy to dismiss Indianapolis as a new town made of buildings constructed within the past 100 years, and in most places that is not too far from the truth. This part of town is a major exception to that, even though it has faced numerous threats in the past. This is a theme that dates back to at least 1958, according to this charming-yet-frightening planning document (seriously, this thing is a...
The Cultural Trail Philosophical Divide: Virginia Ave vs. Mass Ave
Posted by Kevin Kastner in Bicycling, Neighborhoods, New Development, Pedestrian on May 13th, 2014 | 24 comments
Virginia Avenue is hopping with new developments. Each article and news report that is written about the renewed focus on the street has mentioned the Cultural Trail as major catalyst for the revitalization of the street. The Cultural Trail is parallel to the commercial district for almost the entire stretch, with the exception of the short jog it makes to enable easier crossing of East and South Streets.
This angle also enables some nice views of the downtown skyline, as seen in this photo:
Contrast this to how the trail zigs and zags in the city’s other major diagonal commercial district,...
