Paper company plans park for a blighted city corner

Construction has begun on a new neighborhood park at the northwest corner of 29th Street and Capitol Avenue, a vacant parcel that was once home to a filling station. The $75,000 project is a partnership of Idaho-based paper and packaging company Boise Inc., Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and the Alliance for Community Trees. Boise chose the corner as its first foray for an initiative called Project Up, which aims to turn "distressed urban spaces into parks for relaxation, reflection and rejuvenation." The effort is funded out of sales of the company's Aspen line of multipurpose recycled paper. The Highland Vicinity Park will include a variety of trees and other plants, a new pathway, benches and a unique shade structure made of roof fabric from the RCA Dome. The site is in a primarily residential neighborhood a few blocks southwest of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. The intersection's northeast corner, also formerly home to a gas station, now contains several trees, which Keep Indianapolis Beautiful planted a few years ago. The park is scheduled for dedication on Sept. 24. The architect is locally based Synthesis Inc., and the shade structure is being designed by the locally based group People for Urban Progress. The Near North Development Corp. cleaned up both sites using city and state brownfield grants.

(Images: Google Street View and Boise Inc.)