Ozdemir says calculated risks, long-term thinking have shaped career

For more than 20 years, real estate developer Ersal Ozdemir has sought to change skylines with unique and high-end projects across central Indiana.

These days, the IBJ Forty Under 40 alum is in the thick of numerous developments stretching from multiple spots in Hamilton County to Fort Benjamin Harrison to downtown. He’s in talks with Westfield about the future of Grand Park Sports Campus, which his firm was awarded a 40-year contract to operate back in December. He sees development opportunities in abundance in Westfield, both in conjunction with that development and in other pockets of the city.

At Fort Ben, his Keystone Group will start construction on a five-story apartment building along East 56th Street this spring. The expansive Alexander mixed-use project near Keystone at the Crossing is in the design stages, with an undisclosed national restaurant set to sign on for the development that will largely focus on retail and multifamily housing in its first phase before bringing in office and town houses down the road.

And in downtown Indianapolis, Ozdemir’s firm is eyeing completion of the long-awaited, high-end InterContinental Hotel project sometime this fall—potentially September. Keystone is also in the design phase of the $1.5 billion Eleven Park project along the White River near Lucas Oil Stadium. That project will be built in phases, with Ozdemir’s Indy Eleven soccer team set to move into a stadium there around mid-2026. The company is also still in talks with the city about agreements for site infrastructure, as well as a state-backed funding mechanism on the stadium portion of the project.

IBJ sat down with Ozdemir to discuss his path to prominence in Indianapolis real estate and the value of thinking broadly and strategically about opportunities.

You’ve long said that you could potentially take on more if you weren’t as selective about the sites and projects you’re willing to invest in and in ensuring that you have a strong relationship with the cities with which you work. Why are those values important to you as a real estate developer and to Keystone as a company?

I’ve been doing this for a long time, and when you start out a business, you try to do what you can—especially when you’re younger. We’ve built many different things over the years, university buildings to fire stations to hospitals. I wouldn’t be here without all of those projects, whether they’re big or small.

But it’s become really clear in the last 10 years as we’ve evolved more—and particularly in the last five years—that we’re to a point that we feel very clear about what our mission is and what we have passion for. If you love what you do, you’re making a positive impact, right?

Great community needs great amenities, and we feel like this is what we’re meant to develop and we’re good at. And we decided that we wanted to be selective in areas [where] we think we can make a difference. We also want to work with the cities that understand and appreciate and want that kind of project. So it’s important to have the right private-public partnership.

There’s risk in taking on any project, but you’ve been involved in the early days of redevelopment in numerous pockets across central Indiana, whether it’s Mass Ave, Broad Ripple or even the Carmel Midtown area. What has it been like for you to be able to do that, but also to wrestle with the “what ifs” of a potential future where those projects or areas are not ultimately successful?

We don’t have to develop for the sake of development. We do take risks; there’s no question about it. But we try to be calculated, and we try to take that long view when we’re looking at ideas. …

Because you either do a lot, where you get volume, you get cookie-cutter, or you do selective larger projects and do those well, where you take your time to do it. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way, but we just made it very clear that we love these unique and challenging projects that are going to transform the community and neighborhood. We feel lucky that that’s what our mission is.

What role do you see yourself and other developers in your generation and peer group playing in not just building up cities and towns but cultivating the next generation of developers for the city?

We do hire younger folks in the real estate industry to be part of the process, but I feel it’s important to give back further, because I had a lot of good people that helped me when I was starting out.

I’m turning 50 in about a month, and I do have a great family and four kids, so I want to understand how we can continue to help our city and state. This is a great state; I chose to stay here after attending Purdue, and I chose to move to Indianapolis with no friends or family. So, for me, this is home. I chose it back then, and I said I want to make it the best place I’m able to if I have the resources and knowledge to do that.

I recently attended a Junior Achievement event as a past award recipient, and I couldn’t believe it had been 16 years since that happened; I would have thought it was five, six years ago. Now they’re asking me to speak as an old man to these groups, and I love it.

So, we’re trying to find different ways to … support the future generations. … Our duty is to give back whatever we can to the next generation. We must continue to have a pipeline of great talent in all sectors to make sure that we’re pushing the city and state forward and making it better.

Throughout your career, you’ve formed relationships with a lot of very influential people in the state’s political sphere. What is the power of having those connections, while balancing that with the less- or non-partisan dealings you have with cities and towns and other groups in the private sector?

If you want to get something done, you have to get engaged. So, I feel like it’s important as a taxpayer, as a resident of Indiana, that it does matter what the city and the state does—for me and my family as well as my business and my employees. I don’t mean just political engagement, either, because we are serving on many boards, but a lot of people don’t talk about that as much.

The people I’ve met through that—many were very civically engaged, and I was looking up to them. But they were also politically engaged, so I felt a need to be also involved in [that] specifically and to be part of these discussions. When you meet people, they get to know you, and that’s the same as in political environments. They get to know who you are, what your vision is, what you’re trying to do. It’s just getting to know people. So, it isn’t just political or apolitical to do that, but for me, it’s important to be very civically engaged.•