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The city of Indianapolis has closed on the $1.02 million purchase of the Drake apartments from The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis in a deal that has been in the works since at least January.
The city announced the purchase of the Drake, 3060 N. Meridian St., on Wednesday. The Department of Metropolitan Development paid $1,015,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds to purchase the site from the museum in a move that also resolves a lawsuit between the parties.
The DMD plans to convert the eight-story, 95-year-old building into affordable housing units. Because the apartment building is along the IndyGo Red Line, the area is considered a transit corridor—an area in which the city is prioritizing for increasing housing supplies.
“We’re moving forward with a plan to preserve and restore the Drake’s historical significance to the community and expand opportunities for Indianapolis residents along a transit corridor,” Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said in a written statement. “The future of this site holds unlimited potential.”
The city will issue a request for proposals for the Drake that asks developers to restore the historic apartments into a majority affordable housing development, the release said. The Children’s Museum and other community stakeholders will assist in choosing a development partner from those responses.
The Drake has been an often-discussed property since the museum said in mid-2019 that it planned to raze the building as part of a larger real estate effort to make space for additional exhibits and parking.
The move eventually led to the now-resolved two-year legal battle between the museum and city development officials after the city in September 2020 had the building added to the Marion County Register of Historic Places to prevent it from being demolished without an extensive approval process.
The museum sued the city for the move, claiming it was denied due process in the city’s decision to abruptly add the matter to its docket for a hearing.
Despite the lawsuit, the city and the museum had continued to discuss behind closed doors ways to salvage the building, whether through a new development partnership or the city potentially buying the Drake outright.
City filings showed in January that the DMD planned to ask the Metropolitan Development Commission for permission to purchase the 0.8-acre property at 3060 N. Meridian St.
The 26-unit Drake has been vacant since 2016, when the last of its tenants left the property due to its deteriorating condition. The museum said it has sought to find a developer to renovate and operate the Drake since acquiring it in 2012 for $1.25 million, but was unsuccessful in multiple attempts.
The most recent effort came in September 2021, when the museum selected Van Rooy Properties as a potential partner on a redevelopment following a request for inquiries process, but those plans failed to move forward.
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“The future of this site holds unlimited potential.” Well, it might, if you were not explicitly limiting the potential to “affordable housing.” Hopefully there will be a time limit on such near-sighted artificial constraints and it will be able to revert to mostly market rates in the near future. Fortunately, the Museum will at least have some say in choosing the development partner, and try to limit the damage.
Your stripes are showing, Michael. I’ll bet you are among those who complain incessantly about the explosion of the homeless population in Indianapolis.
BrentBoy: I don’t like stripes – I prefer solids, thank you very much. On a non-sartorial note: I haven’t noticed an explosion of homeless in Indy, nor have I complained, incessantly or otherwise. Regardless, the homeless won’t be moving into the Drake, whether the units are affordable or not, as the overwhelming majority of the homeless are mentally ill addicts, without income.
So if private developers walked away, the City thinks they can renovate?
Look for a waste of taxpayer money on an over budget pile of garbage filled with folks who will immediately trash it.Please just save us the grief and give it to someone like Van Rooy at a discount. They have the skill set to do it right. The City does not…
NIMBY
Private developers rarely ever undertake “affordable housing” projects because the profit margins are minimal, even with government incentives. That is while city governments are typically the prime motivators of building or acquiring properties for people who make less than the median income and would otherwise face homelessness. It is a legitimate role for government to play, one which less costly and attractive than the alternatives.
“The Children’s Museum and other community stakeholders will assist in choosing a development partner from those responses.” Why? CM doesn’t own it anymore.
The Museum doesn’t own it any longer, but they agreed to drop their lawsuit in exchange for something – which was to at least have a say in how a property is developed that is in the middle of their campus.
VanRooy has a great track record with older buildings downtown. For the city, the Children’s Museum and VanRooy, this is going to be a win, win, win situation. Nice job.
If you read the paragraph, the plan with Van Rooy did not go forward.
Thanks. I read right past the last few words. That’s too bad. VanRooy has a fantastic record with affordable housing. I lived three door north of one of their buildings for 20 years and it was always well maintained and managed.