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A New District for Downtown Indianapolis

Posted By Paula Henry on Monday, November 12, 2007 1:19:00 PM | 5 Comments

Downtown is prepared to offer a new destination district. After two years of quiet real estate transactions, the land has been acquired. The Legends Entertainment, LLC., is finalizing plans for Legends District-SODO. The new SODO District, literally, South of Downtown is located south of South Street from Madison Avenue to the railroad tracks and to the south past Merrill Street.

The artist rendition of the plan.

SoDo District Indianapolis

The vision is to create an independant destination in the Spirit of Times Square and make Indianapolis more of a destination………maybe we’ll be able to drop the New Years Ball in 2010. The project is expected to begin in fall 2008 with completeion by the end of 2009. The project will include shops, hotel rooms, a concert venue and condos. I personally believe Indianapolis is a great place to live with a variety of cultural and arts events to make it a destination. As such, I am excited to see the addition of another cultural district downtown.

UPDATE: 6/30/2009

So Long, SoDo - According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, the SoDo District dream has ended with the sale of the parking lot at Meridian and South Streets. Read More Here.

Discussion

#1 Posted by Terry Mcdonald at 11/12/2007 6:42 PM

Sounds like a destination for your downtown... it will add considerabl value to downtown Indianapolis I am sure. I know the Charlotte development community thinks highly of what's going on in Indianapolis. Thanks for staying on top of it for us all. Terry McDonald- your guy in Charlotte NC.

#2 Posted by Paula at 11/17/2007 2:35 AM

Terry - Downtown Indianapolis is amazing! We are building a world class city, one neighborhood at a time. Of course this comes at a cost to taxpayers, however, I believe the cost is worth the benefit. Thanks for stopping by!

#3 Posted by Kevin at 11/21/2007 6:41 PM

Paula, I'm curious about your comment regarding "cost to taxpayers". How is Downtown Indianapolis financing this project? We have a planned revitalization project in Alpharetta called City Center.

The plan is to take basically a 4 block area, raze it and rebuild a government center, condos, retail, restaurants and an acre city park. The project is a "public - private partnership", which means the city of alpharetta will contribute infrastructure like gutters, side walks, storm drains and most importantly, parking garages. The plan is to finance it with Tax Increment Financing, which we call Tax Allocation District. However, this method of financing is currently being contested in the State Supreme Court.

It is also interesting that Terry wrote in from Charlotte. I did my masters thesis for the City of Charlotte Development office when i was at Duke. My topic was whether Tax Increment Financing was a viable approach for Charlotte to use to finance redevelopment. I concluded that it was and i think that Charlotte has relied on it quite a bit and and a lot of good development to show for it.

Anyway, i enjoy your sharing with us the new projects that are slated for downtown Indianapolis. thanks.

Kevin.

#4 Posted by Paula Henry at 11/23/2007 6:52 AM

Kevin - The developers will need about 100 million in equity to start the project, either through public subsidy or a combination of private/public partnership.

Here in Indianapolis we have faced increasingly rising property taxes as a result of trending. There was a recent reassessment of property, with the complaint of businesses receiving less of a share of the property tax burden.

While Indianapolis is a great city, with greatness, comes growing pains and financial decisions to be made. Marion County, where Indianapolis is located, recently increased the employment tax to cover the cost of our new stadium. A controversial move, at best.

As a government and city, we want new business, however many do not come without a tax incentive and as we all know, the taxes have to be paid. We can not continue to grow, if we do not have the funds to continue the improvements needed. It is a budget balancing act, to be sure!

While I love the idea of another revitalized district downtown, the funding will probably have to come from a private sector, with minimal government subsidy. I just posted a recap with a new article about The Legends SoDo District.

#5 Posted by Ashley Gephardt at 11/26/2007 10:57 PM

Paula - We have had some growing pains with several areas that are being revitalized as well. Your new downtown district does look amazing though. - Ashley