Lesley Weidenbener: Small steps that build strong communities

“As a city, we do an amazing job celebrating people doing really big things, big developments, big projects, and I love that. … But at the end of the day, if corridors and pockets like this are not being revitalized and neighborhoods aren’t being brought together … it’s just a waste.”

—Phil Kirk, Parkside Public House co-owner

Regular readers might remember that I have lived in the Garfield Park neighborhood since I moved to Indianapolis in late 1995. I started out renting a brick town house on Shelby Street and fell in love with not just the neighborhood and the park but also the proximity to downtown.

So when a cute little brick house popped up for sale just a few blocks away, I nabbed it.

“Great choice,” then-Mayor Steve Goldsmith told me. He said the work underway to revive Fountain Square, the neighborhood about a mile or so to the north, would soon make its way to Garfield Park.

Twenty-seven years later, we’re seeing some of that renewal come to fruition. That’s not to throw shade at Goldsmith. Urban change is unpredictable, and I love that my little part of Indianapolis stayed largely unchanged throughout the nearly three decades I’ve been there.

In fact, for most of that time, the Garfield Park area remained a fantastic place for first-time homebuyers, retirees and young families to pick up an incredibly affordable house in a safe and pretty neighborhood. And because the neighborhood never had a big downturn, it was never ripe for investors the way Fountain Square had been.

Still, over the last few years, housing prices have started to rise, and the neighborhood has become trendier. I have loved that, too. The Garfield Brewery and two coffee shops have opened along Shelby Street. A farmers market has become a summer mainstay. The arts not-for-profit Big Car Collaborative opened an arts campus near the park. And other entrepreneurs began to see that the neighborhood could be a destination.

One of them is Phil Kirk, who, with his brother, Joel, bought a building at the corner of Shelby Street and Southern Avenue, just across the street from Garfield Park. Over the past couple of years, they have renovated the building into Yoke Pavilion, with short-term rental apartments, an art gallery and retail spaces that are reviving the area’s small commercial strip.

This week, Phil Kirk and partner Josh Haines, the face of the Garfield Brewery, opened Parkside Public House on the pavilion’s first floor. And last Saturday, my husband and I went to a wine dinner there featuring food by local chefs Abbi Merriss and Fidel Garcia and wine from Johnson Bros.

The event was packed, the food was delicious, and Kirk, Haines, Merriss and Garcia were all smiles as the crowd of folks mostly from Garfield Park and nearby neighborhoods celebrated their efforts.

Kirk gave a little speech to start the night that included the quote I started with. What he said stood out to me, because it wasn’t just about the personal triumph of opening a restaurant or starting a business. It was about building a community one block at a time.

I met neighbors on Saturday night I’d never seen—or I’d seen and never spoken with. I learned about other projects underway in the neighborhood. I gathered a few story ideas. We just had fun.

Thanks to Phil Kirk and others in my neighborhood and in neighborhoods across the city and state who are making our worlds a better place to live and work. I think I speak for many when I say we appreciate it.•

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Weidenbener is editor of IBJ and assistant publisher of IBJ and Indiana Lawyer. Reach her at lweidenbener@ibj.com.