Saturday, August 15, 2009

Development: Observations Around Town

I attended a wedding last weekend and left my camera in a friend's car. Unfortunately, that car went to South Carolina before I realized the camera was missing. For now, here are some things I've observed around town.

Cosmopolitan on the Canal: After the March fire wiped out a significant portion of the complex, workers spent several months salvaging and rebuilding the spared main building at Senate and Michigan. Now, they appear to have started the process of rebuilding the rest of the complex. Some new wood framing is present along Michigan and one of the two metal frames for the canal-front sections have reappeared (EDIT 8/15: just walked by and both frames are now up). Their website says "COMING FALL 2009 - NOW LEASING" so they must be fairly close to finishing the rebuild on the main building. Maybe the retail sections will open this fall as well? (EDIT 8/16: the Indy Star reports that they won't reopen any of the complex until early 2010. Maybe Flaherty & Collins should update their webpage?)

Indiana Convention Center Expansion: This project is moving along fast. It's obviously very visible as you drive south on Capitol but you can see a significant portion of the expansion rising above the train tracks while driving north on Missouri as well. It's BIG. The "diving board" for the new main entrance at Georgia and Capitol has been installed.

Indianapolis Cultural Trail: It seems like you can't go anywhere immediately north of downtown without seeing some aspect of the construction. Almost the entire North and Northeast Corridors of the trail are simultaneously under construction, a total of approximately 2 miles (for comparison, the completed section on Alabama is 0.5 miles).

Zing: We're just a couple weeks from the one year anniversary of their opening. Why do I note this? Because the owners indicated that they needed to wait one year for the galvanized steel of their wrap-around deck to cure before painting it. Here's how they envisioned the final product:


Elements: When they closed in April, owner Dennis Dunn indicated they would remain available for special events while attempting to secure funding to reopen. He was most likely blowing sunshine, but if not, that possibility is officially dead given that there is now a For Lease sign in the window. With a prime location on the Cultural Trail, next to a pocket park and very near Mass Ave, I can't imagine this space will stay empty for very long.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What do you think of the "diving board" that just got installed on the Convention Center? I wish they could light it up with LED lights like the Pittsburgh convention center.

CorrND said...

I'm going to wait and see how the whole Capitol frontage turns out before I judge.