Penn Centre wins approval
The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission gave its unanimous approval last night for Penn Centre, a massive hotel, residential and restaurant development across from Conseco Fieldhouse. The next step is to add more…
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A cleaner Canal
The city has agreed to pay a Kokomo company up to $423,000 to clean the Central Canal from 11th Street to the White River. The deal with biosolids management firm Merrell Bros….
R.I.P. Marquis Tower?
A 24-year-old’s dream for a twisting downtown apartment tower has run into a brick wall. Jaron Garrett couldn’t raise enough money to exercise contracts on the run-down properties he had hoped to…
Fleeing the … suburbs?
August Mack Environmental said today it will move its corporate headquarters from Castleton to downtown’s Lexington at Meridian. The Indianapolis-based environmental consulting company plans to take 16,200 square feet in the former home…
Skewers of meat and more
A few nuggets to break up an otherwise slow day for real estate news:
All-You-Can-Eat Meat: The deal is done to bring the upscale Brazilian Steakhouse Fogo de Chão (fo-go dèe shoun, or fire…
Developers pitch Meridian Street infill
Two local developers have plans to replace downtown parking lots along Meridian Street with new mixed-use buildings. Jupiter Land Group, headed by restaurateur Rick Coombes, wants to build a five-story retail…
RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Give me the site, but hold the uninvited video
I can still remember when vacation movies were captured on 8mm film and had to be shown on jerky little projectors with hot bulbs that gave off ozone by the bucketful. Fascinating to the family that took the movies, but deadly dull to everyone else. Then along came video cameras that were much more portable and could show their movies on the family VCR. They had many advanced features, such as zoom, stop action, and even dubbing. And they were…
Premier not afraid of going head-to-head with Simon
Premier Properties USA Inc. is preparing to go head-to-head with Simon Property Group Inc., the nation’s largest and most
powerful mall developer, across the street from Simon’s top-performing The Fashion Mall at Keystone. Premier is proposing
a 2.3-million-square-foot, $750 million development at 86th Street and Keystone Avenue called Venu.
Wholesale District developments would replace parking lots
Now that most of the existing buildings along South Meridian Street downtown have been rehabbed for condos, restaurants or
hotels, developers are eyeing surface parking lots. Local companies filed plans recently to replace two such gaps in the Wholesale
District streetscape with mixed-use projects.
To weather downturn, housing industry rolls out incentives
For most of this decade, the Indianapolis residential real estate market enjoyed a very good run. But now it’s muddling through
the doldrums just like the rest of the country, and builders are pulling out all the stops to avoid getting stuck with inventory.
INVESTING: Market isn’t as strong as major indexes show
Experts are doing their best to convince us everything is right with the world again. A few hundred billion dollars in liquidity here, a few cuts in the discount and fed rates there, and we’re back in Shangri La, right? My question to all of the experts then is this: Why isn’t it working? On the surface, things seem like they are getting back in shape. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 are within 1 or 2 percent of new…
IPS pledge: Fence is temporary
The second- and third-floor parking levels of the Indianapolis Public Schools headquarters will remain surrounded on three sides by a chain-link fence at least until the spring, a school district official said today….
Fountain Square’s artistic alleys
Earlier this year, real estate agent and Fountain Square resident Phil Barcio began the Fountain Square Mural Project, an effort to transform the neighborhood’s alleys to help prevent crime and…
No more Nothing But Noodles
Arizona-based Nothing But Noodles has closed its local stores on 96th Street and near the IUPUI campus. No one answered the phone at either of the stores or at the Indianapolis corporate…
Taco battle is brewing
Look out, Taco Bell. California-based Del Taco, the country’s No. 2 taco chain, is planning to open 16 new restaurants in Indianapolis. The chain, which already has about 500 restaurants in 14…
New airport taking shape
The new Indianapolis airport has been in the news lately (thanks to plans for special foot basins for Muslim taxi drivers). We haven’t yet discussed the airport, so here’s your chance. The…
Foot Locker taking Flagstar space
Foot Locker has filed plans to open a 3,300-square-foot store at the corner of Meridian and Washington streets downtown. The space currently is home to Flagstar Bank, which plans to move to…
Navigating the credit crunch: Will subprime woes leave you dry? Here’s what to look for.
For months, we’ve been reading and hearing news about the so-called subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting “credit crunch.” For thousands of families who have lost their homes to foreclosure, the crisis is clear. For most people, however, the impact isn’t so obvious. Beyond those directly affected by mortgage defaults, who else should be concerned about the aftershocks? Some economic forecasters are warning that the subprime mortgage situation and the ongoing weakness in the housing market could linger long enough…
Fiercely private developer built strip-center empire
Sid Eskenazi fell in love with the board game Monopoly as a child. Buying and developing make-believe properties with make-believe money inspired the grade-schooler. And he was good at it. So several years later, Eskenazi began playing what he likes to call “adult Monopoly.” He bought one property at a time with real money.
EYE ON THE PIE: Give tax relief to those who truly need it
No topic brings me more mail than property taxes. Some of this mail is silly, some is tragic. Many writers are concerned that they or their neighbors will lose their homes because of propertytax increases. This is a serious, legitimate concern. However, it is not a reason to abolish property taxes. Those who are hard-pressed to pay their property taxes are not different from those who have problems paying utility bills, medical bills, and the costs of other necessities. These…