Damien Center planning 40-unit apartment project next to future headquarters

The Damien Center has acquired a vacant apartment building (foreground right) next to the site of of its future headquarters that could serve as housing for people receiving care. (Image courtesy of Google)

Damien Center is further expanding its footprint on the near-east side of Indianapolis, acquiring a vacant apartment building next to its partially-constructed future headquarters with plans to redevelop the property as affordable housing.

The nonprofit, Indiana’s largest and oldest AIDS service organization, is in the early stages of planning housing on the site at 1438 E. Washington St. Acquired this month, the property is directly east of Damien Center’s three-story headquarters that has been under construction since early 2023 at the northeast corner of Oriental Avenue and Washington Street.

Damien Center is weighing whether to reuse the existing apartment building for a portion of the housing project and build a wraparound addition, or if it will raze the structure in favor of entirely new construction.

The organization hasn’t finalized a budget for the project, but early estimates place the cost around $12 million to $15 million, said Alan Witchey, Damien’s president and CEO. The project would consist of about 40 apartments, all of which would be used for people experiencing homelessness or care for health conditions through the Damien Center.

“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to secure a few pieces of land all together to make more of a campus for the Damien Center in the future,” he said.

While early research on the property shows the building is salvageable, most of the interior would need to be gutted. The structure has been abandoned for about 30 years.

“It’s a little early yet to know for sure, but I think our team would like to preserve the building, if possible,” Witchey said. “I don’t know that it has any major historic value, but it does go with the neighborhood.”

Witchey said the organization plans to fundraise for a portion of the project cost, while also hoping to secure additional dollars from the city, state or federal government through programs like low-income housing tax credits, grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the HOME program or community block grants. If the existing structure remains in place, additional funding could be available through redevelopment tax credits and preservation grants.

“We’re excited because we’re really at the beginning of the planning process with it, and we hope to have some other partners, like the [Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority] and the city of Indianapolis come to the table to help us look at different potential funding sources and options so it can be a win-win, both for the community and our organization,” Witchey said.

He said the Damien Center plans to work alongside Horizon House and Wheeler Mission to provide services to high-need communities, including those facing homelessness. The center’s apartment tenants would be a mix of existing clients and those in need of support services.

“What we’re really hoping to do is bring people into housing that have unique needs related to their health care, so we can blend those two together to have the best outcomes and stability,” Witchey said. “We really hope to bring in people that would benefit from that sort of intersection of various services and have a much stronger, healthier life as a result of it.”

Development of the apartments likely would not start before 2026, with a 12- to 18-month construction period. The site is already zoned for mixed-use and apartment purposes, but Witchey said the organization plans to work closely with the city to flesh out the project.

Founded in 1987, Damien Center launched its last capital campaign 15 years ago when it raised $2.4 million to fund capital improvements to its current building.

The plans for apartments come as Damien Center prepares to open its new $4 million, 56,000-square-foot headquarters in 2025, among other efforts to bolster its support systems for those living with AIDS and HIV. The building will replace Damien Center’s existing 15,000-square-foot building at 26 Arsenal Ave.

The new building will include administrative offices, exam rooms, new dental and vision services, a lab and an expanded food pantry and pharmacy. Damien Center also plans to expand its youth programming, housing, prevention and harm-reduction programs and introduce up to 10 new programs and services.

The organization is also set to open a coffee shop and employment services center at 1446 E. Washington St., a building that was home to LGBTQ+ nightclub Zonie’s Closet from 2008 to 2022. The center will help the nonprofit Damien Center expand its programing to serve more than 500 individual annually, with a focus on attaining a living wage, improved health and wellness and more self-sufficiency.

Renovations to that building include a complete interior overhaul, structural repairs, utility work and improved accessibility features, as well as a new new 1,000-square-foot addition offering ADA-accessible restrooms.

Witchey said the approach will create a model unique to Damien Center’s operations, allowing it to meet the needs of many its constituents directly.

“We will have four buildings on our campus,” with the addition of the apartments, Witchey said. “We’ll be able to help people with employment, with housing, with health care, with medications. It really creates a unique opportunity for us to have a significant impact on people who are very disenfranchised from different systems of care, people who might really struggle to go to bigger systems of care for various reasons.”

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, some groups of people in the U.S. are more likely to get HIV than others because of many factors, including their sex partners and risk behaviors.

The virus weakens a person’s immune system by destroying cells that fight disease and infection. There is currently no effective cure for HIV, but with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Indianapolis area is home to about 2,000 people who know they have HIV but have fallen out of care, and another 1,000 people living with the virus who don’t know they have it, Damien Center officials have said.

Damien Center is expanding in other directions, too. In March, it acquired a three-story, 11,200-square-foot office building at 3909 N. Meridian St., which was former home to the Society of Professional Journalists, for more than $1 million.

Damien Center is using the building as a satellite office location until the new headquarters is completed, before eventually turning it into a service hub for clients.