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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowOn a recent Thursday afternoon on the Circle, a dozen kids piled up blue foam blocks as their parents looked on, a man in a sharp blue suit read a novel while drinking a glass of wine, and a couple of teenagers played pingpong with friends cheering them on, waiting to take on the winner.
The fun was taking place at a pop-up park called Spark on the Circle, a partnership of Downtown Indy Inc., Big Car Collaborative, Capital Improvement Board, Indiana War Memorials Commission and the city.
The temporary park is in the southwest quadrant of the Circle, where Emmis Corp. and the South Bend Chocolate Factory are located and where cars typically drive. That section of the Circle is closed to traffic while the park is activated.
Spark is a welcome addition to downtown and the Circle in particular—one it feels like the city has been building up to for too long. There has been talk for years about making all or parts of the Circle pedestrian-only so it can become more of an event and recreation space. The need for that kind of change has only grown since the pandemic decimated downtown.
Last year, the partners dipped their toe into the idea with a few activities—some music, pingpong, Adirondack chairs—along the sidewalk. But the effort seemed too tentative and not nearly enough to be a reason to come downtown or spend more time on the Circle.
This year’s Spark on the Circle is a much more impressive effort. There are more activities in a much larger space—and not just games. There is a space to take selfies, a place to create and mail a postcard, an area to learn about Indiana artists, and a space to write poetry.
There are tables, chairs and umbrellas to shield the sun. There’s a snack stand that sells sandwiches, salads, sweets, coffee, beer and wine. There seems to always be a police officer or security person nearby. And there are downtown ambassadors keeping watch over who’s doing what and cleaning up as people come and go.
Since it opened earlier this month, the Spark park has been filled with people—starting when it opens at 11 a.m. and into the evening (the park closes at dark). Those people have brought much-needed energy back to the Circle, and the number of homeless people in the area seems to have decreased.
We urge the city—and its partners—to expand this year’s temporary effort into something permanent, a move that could require other changes. For example, closing the Circle to traffic long term might mean making some downtown streets—Illinois and Pennsylvania, in particular—into two-way streets to make navigating downtown easier.
A number of other cities have created similar types of parks to make their downtowns more attractive and to encourage residents and visitors to use the space in new ways. Carmel offers a great example, but so do big cities like Detroit, which has transformed some of its downtown spaces into inviting recreation areas.
Spark on the Circle is a great start. We look forward to what comes next.•
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More decorating in the streets. Next up: Let’s “activate” portions of the interstate with “programming” – maybe a bounce house in the middle two lanes of I-465, or a selfie station at the merge point of I-65 and I-70. If it snarls traffic, it has to be a good thing for the city – right?
That’s the most harebrained straw man I’ve seen in some time! I commend you on your creative use of exaggeration to state your belief that cars are more important than a thriving downtown.
But if you want to play, let’s play. Yes, we should have demolished or bury the I-65/70 connector and restore a functional east side. Traffic is a symptom of our insistence that Fishers commuters are more important than downtown residents, and it’s time to stop it.
Richard understands it all. Charles not so much.
We have, in the above comment, the essence of the anti-car plaint: “Cars are more important than a thriving downtown”. As if that is the choice. Do tell, Charles M., your vision for a thriving downtown Indianapolis with no cars.
I love that we close like 2,000 sq feet of pavement in the third most paved downtown in the country and Richard is calling it a carless downtown. There’s being willfully obtuse and then there’s this take…
We have so many downtown open spaces, parks, plazas, trails, the canal, the City Market, the City Co building plaza-Lugar Plaza, University Park, just to name a few, that are all under used, all underutilized, under programmed, and lack any real dynamics and civic gatherings. The Spark could maybe help reinvigorate some of those spaces instead of the right-of-way! The Circle Spark is nothing more than an ‘adult-kids playground’. The kids in charge of our planning today want instant gratification, but not willing take on the complex challenge of sparking what we have, except using public rights-of-way of existing iconic spaces. Because the circle spark is city sponsored, all of a sudden we have more police presence. All of a sudden less homeless and vagrants, all of a sudden it appears the circle can be a safer place due to the police presence. What a surprise the police presence can make.
To remove a quarter of a never ending circle basically cripples the space. The triangle in Detroit only removed one leg of the triangle, thus allowing the car to still reach all 3 points, can’t do that with removing part of a circle.
Let this be a summer experiment for the trendy, but let’s try and spark what we already have in the permanent open spaces we let sit idle.
Amen, brother.
Vonnegut: “Everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
You say ‘adult-kids playground’ as if that is a bad thing . . . ?
Downtown has one single playground, and very few spaces for kids. The city desperately needs more ‘adult-kids playground’ spaces! We should have Spark type operations in each of public space you listed.
There’s always been a high police presence. That’s not new.
As usual, most of the naysayers likely don’t even live in or near downtown. If you want to have real input, run for office or simply attend a public meeting. Spouting off your vitriol on media comment pages like this or on social media to your buddies doesn’t make any meaningful contribution.