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A slew of indoor event venues and arenas is set to open across Marion and Hamilton counties in the next few years, with some projects already attracting substantial interest.
No fewer than three facilities focused on entertainment and tourism are expected to open in downtown Indianapolis by the end of 2027 while two others, in Noblesville and Fishers, are scheduled to debut by next summer.
But each project is wildly different in the size and the intrigue it presents to event promoters and visitors.
The Hamilton County facilities largely focus on building a cohort of small-to-midsize professional sports teams—along with a healthy slate of midsize music, comedy and other live entertainment in the northern suburbs.
The 7,000-seat Fishers Event Center is expected to be home to the Indy Fuel, a mid-level professional hockey team; professional volleyball team Indy Ignite; and the Fishers Freight, an indoor football team. Noblesville will be home to the Indiana Mad Ants, the developmental G League affiliate of the Indiana Pacers.
Downtown Indianapolis is anticipating the proposed CSX building redevelopment from the Herb Simon family (majority owner of the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever), which includes a 13-story hotel and a 4,000-seat entertainment venue operated by Los Angeles-based, worldwide event promoter Live Nation Entertainment.
A planned 4,500-seat multi-sport arena at Indiana University Indianapolis that is expected to be approved in mid-September by the IU board of trustees is awaiting state-funding approval for its $110 million budget. That facility is expected to focus on retaining and expanding Indianapolis’ amateur athletics scene.
By far the largest project in the event-center pipeline—both in size and cost—is the $710 million redevelopment of Pan Am Plaza that will feature a 37-story hotel and nearly 150,000 square feet of meeting space as part of an expansion of the Indiana Convention Center. The project is intended to attract dozens of conventions every year while holding on to more than $2 billion in existing business over the next decade.
Visit Indy, the city’s tourism arm, is directly involved in only the convention center expansion. But the group’s CEO, Leonard Hoops, said the proliferation of new facilities is a big win for the whole metro area.
“From a Visit Indy perspective, the more venues that we have the ability to shop to our customer base, the better,” he said. “Moving forward, [it could] make us even more successful with indoor sports, whether volleyball, football—there’s indoor soccer and things like that, too. There are all sorts of things that are happening [in the event space], so I think it opens up, from a Visit Indy and Indiana Sports Corp. perspective, more sports and more markets to pursue. How [the event centers] fill all their days, I have no idea, but that’s for each of them to figure out.”
Hoops isn’t alone in his expectation that the new venues will reap success throughout central Indiana. All the venue leaders told IBJ they are confident their projects are a piece of the puzzle that will help the area generate more interest among meeting planners, promoters and visitors.
“Overall, the goal is to make these spaces part of a regional asset,” said Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen, “That’s why you see Mayor [Scott] Fadness and Fishers building the event center that they are—theirs is about double the size of ours, in terms of seats. But they will attract different entertainment acts and different opportunities, and it will be done in a cohesive vision to make central Indiana a top entertainment, conference and event center space in the nation.”
Fishers Event Center
At about 80% complete, with a scheduled opening less than 70 days out, the Fishers Event Center has already announced a slate of acts, from country music band Turnpike Troubadours, to comedian Leanne Morgan, to All Elite Wrestling.
The venue will be also home to the Indy Fuel, which is moving from Indiana Farmers Coliseum at the Indiana State Fairgrounds this year and will play 36 home games each season. Team owner Jim Hallett owns the Fishers Freight football team, too, which will play a handful of games at the venue every spring.
The Indy Ignite, a professional women’s volleyball team, will begin its inaugural season in January, with 12 home games throughout the five-month calendar.
Fadness said the size of the arena (7,000 seats for sporting events and up to 8,500 seats for concerts) was intentional. It gives central Indiana a moderately sized facility that emphasizes “high-end finishes and viewer experience,” he said, but added that central Indiana’s planned facilities should coalesce on plans to attract a broader swath of events.
“If we can work together collectively—which is a big if, and we’re working towards that, right, as the public sector is finally gaining some alignment around working together—we can leverage all those assets to bring amazing opportunities to central Indiana,” he said.
The $170 million event center, which will be managed by Los Angeles-based ASM Global, is set to feature 21 suites—more than two-thirds of which have been sold. A naming-rights partner has not been announced for the venue.
Noblesville Event Center
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Just six miles up Interstate 69, near Hamilton Town Center, Noblesville is halfway through construction on its 3,400-seat arena and an adjoining 1,000-space parking garage. The project, currently known as Noblesville Event Center, is set to open next July as part of the city’s Innovation Mile development.
Jensen said the $93 million project will be anchored by the Mad Ants for the next decade, but the team will occupy only 40 days of the calendar. That leaves room for plenty of other activity, he said, from more sports and entertainment to community events and statewide or small national conferences. The city has contracted with Arlington, Texas-based REV Entertainment, which manages Globe Life Field for Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers, to manage and program the venue year-round.
Finding uses for the venue is “not something that I think the city needs to be doing, because we need to be focused on our core functions of government,” he said. “They’ll be focused on not just entertainment aspects, but they’ll be looking at different conferences and event opportunities—there’s a lot of hotel space in and around Innovation Mile, so it makes it incredibly appealing for those statewide conferences or national conferences that are looking, not necessarily in the core of [Indianapolis], but on the outer ring and the suburbs.”
The Mad Ants have a 10-year deal with Pacers Sports & Entertainment, but Jensen said conversations are ongoing about what a longer-term partnership might look like—and what the team will ultimately be named.
“They’re at the table with us every step of the way through this development, and they know the additional scope that we have laid out for this event center—a lot of it they have given input into,” he said. “We’ve had very healthy conversations with them about that continued partnership going forward.”
Signia by Hilton and Convention Center expansion
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Since ground broke on the redevelopment of Pan Am Plaza in August 2023, tens of thousands of pounds of dirt and concrete have been excavated, creating a hole 30 feet deep. Convention officials said the project should be complete by fall 2026.
In June, more than 1.5 million gallons—800 truckloads—of concrete was poured in 12 hours for foundation of the planned Signia by Hilton hotel, making it the single-largest concrete pour for a building in Indianapolis history. Since then, about 85% of the entire site’s foundation has been poured, reaching 15 feet deep in some areas. The rest is expected to be poured by the end of October.
Andy Mallon, executive director of the Capital Improvement Board, which is overseeing the project, said it won’t be completed in time for most of the city’s big 2026 events, like the NCAA Men’s Final Four, the FDIC International conference, Gen Con or the National FFA convention. But officials hope it will open before the Performance Racing Industry and American Dental Association shows that December.
“We’ve been very open with [convention customers], and they know how construction works,” he said. “None of the projects or the groups that we have were contingent on it being open [for 2026], so if it’s not open by then, they’re not pulling out” of Indianapolis.
Visit Indy officials have said the Pan Am project will allow Indianapolis to retain more than $2 billion in major conventions over the next decade, including Gen Con, and the National FFA and FDIC International gatherings.
With hundreds of thousands of visitors tied to convention traffic, the expansion plays to an entirely different market than what Fishers or Noblesville are pursuing.
Hoops, with Visit Indy, has also previously told IBJ the expansion project could generate as much as $570 million in new business over its first decade, by allowing the city to host two major conventions at the same time and helping it compete for events that require more space than Indy could provide.
The $250 million convention center expansion, which is being paid for separately from the hotel, will also be used by the Signia for its own nearer-term rentals, like weddings, banquets and other events. Hotel staff will be able to book events in a 12- to 16-month window, while Visit Indy will have booking rights for further out, as each time period generally attracts different users.
The 37-story hotel tower, which will feature 800 rooms, has made steady progress since vertical construction began in July, with the elevator shaft now climbing at a rate of roughly one floor every few weeks, Mallon said.
The tower is expected to top out in December 2025, before it is enclosed for interior construction over the following 10 months.
CSX property redevelopment
At Georgia and Pennsylvania streets, across from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, plans to redevelop the former CSX warehouse building are picking up steam. The project will consist of both a Shinola-brand hotel with up to 170 rooms and an event venue that can be configured for various uses, including live performances, like comedians and musicians. The property will also feature a parking garage.
While details and costs for the entertainment aspect of the project haven’t been finalized, Boxcar Development, an investment group led by the Simon family, has reached an agreement in principle with Live Nation to operate the facility.
Boxcar already manages two downtown venues, the Murat Theatre at Old National Centre and Everwise Amphitheater, along with Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville.
Phil Bayt, an Ice Miller LLP attorney who represents the Simons on the project, said the family began considering an entertainment venue for the project earlier this year, after learning that Live Nation was considering a project of its own but hadn’t landed on a site. Previously, the project called for more than 200 apartments.
“Since we did not have anything finalized with respect to the apartments, we immediately touched base with the folks at Live Nation, with whom PS&E has been doing business for 40 years,” Bayt said. “So it was an easy and … very exciting conversation, and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the room.”
He said the 87,000-square-foot music venue fills a size gap in the market that downtown has long sought to satisfy: a venue whose 4,000 seats are capable of serving as a year-round option for mid-tier acts that can’t fill 18,000-seat Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Demolition on the historic CSX property is expected to begin by the end of the year, pending approval from the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission (which considered the matter after this story went to print). The redevelopment is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
IU Indianapolis arena
While ground hasn’t broken on IU Indianapolis’ proposed $110 million multi-sport arena, planning is well underway. The university hopes to secure funding approval for the project from the State Budget Committee by the end of October.
The arena, known as the IU Indianapolis Athletics Center, is expected to occupy part of a 7-acre green space at the northwest corner of Blackford and Wabash streets, between the Herron School of Art and Design to the north and the NCAA and National Federation of State High School Associations headquarters complex, and Military Park to the south.
Unlike some of the other major facilities already under construction in central Indiana, the 134,500-square-foot IU project isn’t trying to attract professional franchises, said Luke Bosso, director of athletics for the university.
“Our wheelhouse is going to be amateur sporting events,” said Bosso, adding that he sees value in Noblesville’s and Fishers’ respective plans for professional basketball and volleyball, but it’s not something the school plans to replicate. “I think those suburban arenas are going to be great for those [efforts], just as our arena is going to be great for downtown Indy.”
The venue is expected to be used regularly by the school’s volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball programs. Since 2014, the IUPUI men’s basketball team has played home games at the 6,800-seat Indiana Farmers Coliseum at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, while the women’s basketball team and the volleyball team play at The Jungle on campus.
A portion of the proposed 16,000 square feet of office space within the facility is expected to be leased by Indianapolis-based USA Track & Field, a national governing body. The company plans to move from its headquarters at 130 E. Washington St.
There might also be a push to move the Horizon League basketball championships—which typically draw fewer than 5,000—from the Indiana Farmers Coliseum to the campus site, although Bosso declined to comment on the prospect.
The project is expected to be largely funded through appropriations approved during the Indiana General Assembly’s 2023 budget session, with the rest—about $21 million—covered by funds allocated to IU Indianapolis by the university system’s board.
“Overall, if we continue to host amateur sports in Indianapolis, our venue is going to be a nice add-on, so the city can host events that we haven’t been able to host in the past, especially with the size of it,” Bosso said. “We’re excited that we’re all going to be working together to continue to make Indianapolis and the doughnut counties the amateur sports capital of the world.”•
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