Local developer plans new headquarters, restaurant in Broad Ripple

This early-stage conceptual rendering of the Avenue project shows how the fourth level would be terraced to soft the buildings visual impact on Cornell Avenue. (Image courtesy of Random Ripplings)

A local development firm focused on the health care industry plans to build a new headquarters building in Broad Ripple.

Avenue Development plans to construct a four-story office structure in the middle of the 6500 block of Cornell Avenue, directly west of the Monon Trail. The firm has not yet shared how much it plans to spend on the headquarters project, which would also have space for other office tenants and a first-floor restaurant tenant.

Avenue develops health care offices, rehabilitation facilities and senior living communities.

“We’re trying really hard to really bring to market something that I think could be a huge amenity to the neighborhood,” Mike Mattingly, principal and co-founder of Avenue, told IBJ. “These are going to be daytime jobs and will help revive some daytime traffic there and utilize a lot of the amenities that the village has to offer.”

The restaurant will be a new concept from the parent company of Broad Ripple staple Ambrosia and Fountain Square’s Commodore, along with Bocca in Fall Creek Place.

The restaurant concept—which will not replace Ambrosia—would take space on the first floor and operate in the evening hours when the office areas are generally unoccupied. The first level also would include a parking area with about 20 spaces.

The second, third and fourth floors would be occupied by offices. Although final plans are still in flux, Mattingly said, each floor would be about 15,000 square feet.

The building would be designed in a way that the fourth level is stepped back on the Cornell Avenue side to give the structure the appearance of being three stories.

Avenue, operating as BR HQ Real Estate, already has the land for the project under contract, consisting of four parcels: 6548, 6552, 6556 Cornell Ave. and 6535 Ferguson St. The latter property is directly west of the Cornell properties on the same block.

Four buildings on the parcels would be demolished for the project, and the parcels would be combined as a single, L-shaped, 0.8-acre property.

A parking lot is planned for the Ferguson Street property and would have about 25 spaces.

Avenue last month presented initial plans to the Broad Ripple Village Association’s land use committee, ahead of a formal request to the city to rezone the 0.8-acre parcel from the MU-2 and D-4 designations to only MU-2, which allows for mixed use developments.

The project will also require a variance of development standards to allow for the four-story building and the parking lot, as well as the partial vacation of the alley that runs north-to-south between Ferguson Street and Cornell Avenue.

Neighbors who attended the land use meeting expressed concerns about the vacation of the alley, because it is often used for vehicular traffic, as well as the project as a whole, because it is bringing additional commercial development to the area.

Mattingly said his firm has already met with at least 20 members of the community individually to discuss the project and ways to improve it. Avenue is expected to return to the land use committee this month to present updated plans for the project. The committee ultimately would make a recommendation to city officials.

Avenue is currently based at Keystone at the Crossing, but plans to move to Broad Ripple as part of a continued investment in the neighborhood that began with its involvement in the Broad Ripple Park family center that is now under construction.

“We really wanted to continue to plant our roots here,” Mattingly said. “It’s taken about a year for us to find the right spot, and we feel like it could be really valuable” to the neighborhood.