Development: Ivy Tech, St. Vincent Recap and Siteplan

The old St. Vincent Hospital between Capitol Ave. and Illinois St. at Fall Creek Parkway potentially faced the wrecking ball in July 2008. Ivy Tech was in need of new classroom space and had deemed St. Vincent Hospital -- until 2002 a public housing project and sold to Ivy Tech for $1 in 2006 -- unsuitable for classroom conversion. They proposed razing St. Vincent and building this classroom building:


Fortunately, the Indiana Historic Landmarks Foundation quickly stepped in and put an end to that talk. St. Vincent was temporarily saved, while Ivy Tech was left in a bind, with a need for new classroom space to support a student body that continued to grow unabated.

In early 2009, a plan was floated to convert St. Vincent into student housing. The project would have provided an $18M renovation of St. Vincent and space for 250 students to live, while Ivy Tech would have turned to other land on their campus for construction of a new classroom building. Perhaps due to poor financial timing by the developers involved, that plan fizzled rather quickly, forcing Ivy Tech back to the drawing board.

By mid 2009, Ivy Tech had produced another new plan, a compromise with historical preservationists that would save the southern, Fall Creek Parkway facade of St. Vincent Hospital and construct a new building behind it (a process commonly called facadectomy). Here is a rendering of the proposal:



Facadectomy is a controversial process and the proposal lead to quite a debate around the internet. Despite the controversy, Ivy Tech is proceeding with its facadectomy plan and demolition of the building is currently underway. Thanks to Chris Barnett of the Near North Development Corporation, here is the siteplan for the future Ivy Tech building, which will feature classrooms and laboratories, as well as student services and community space:



For comparison, here is an overhead shot of the site as of 2005:



Curt at Huston Street Racing has a photo in a recent post that shows some of the demolition work currently being done on St. Vincent. Also see an earlier post here at DIG-B, showing the state of the building in August 2008 when total demolition seemed imminent.

Photos: St. Weyertech Building

I'm not sure what to call this building. Most recently, it functioned as Section 8 housing under the name Weyerbacher Terrace Apartments, though it was originally built as St. Vincent Hospital in 1913. St. Vincent Hospital operated out of this building until 1974 when it moved to its current location on 86th St, after which the building was converted to federally subsidized housing. When Weyerbacher Terrace was forcibly closed in 2002, it fell into disuse and disrepair. It was subsequently sold by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to the City of Indianapolis in 2004 for $10 and then to Ivy Tech Community College in 2006 for $1. Ivy Tech planned to rehabilitate the building and convert it to classroms, though there is some controversy over their current plans, as, due to technical difficulties with rehabbing the building to their desired use, they have instead proposed to demolish the building and construct a new structure specifically for modern classrooms.

Here's how the building looks as of August 2008.


Someone posted quite a collection of photos of the interior of the building last year on flickr, so be sure to check those out as well.