INDIANAPOLIS — The last time anybody asked the neighbors what they thought ought to be done with the 15 acres of land bordered by New York, Randolph and Michigan Streets on the east side of Indianapolis, Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United States.
In 1873, the first women’s prison in the United States was built on that site. It closed in 2009 and was reopened as a parolee re-entry facility before shutting its doors for good in 2017.
Ever since then, residents in the Willard Park and Woodruff Place neighborhoods have pleaded with state and city officials to come up with a plan on what to do with the abandoned site.
This past week, it was announced that, in a land swap, the City of Indianapolis will take control of the former prison property. The deal stipulated that the State of Indiana receive a section of land in the 700 block of North Sherman Drive and the animal care services property on South Harding Street. The state won’t get access to the animal care services property until the facility closes and IACS moves its operations to a new building.
”For seven years, the neighborhood has been advocating with the City and State, and state representatives, and state senators to listen to the neighbors and develop a new plan for the site,” said Will Pritchard of the Women’s Prison Alliance.
Over the past few years, the prison compound has fallen into disarray. Roofs and windows have gaping holes, graffiti decorates the walls, trash and weeds are present throughout the land and vandals and thieves slip in and out of the property under the cover of darkness.
The redevelopment of the land is not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; It’s a once-in-two-lifetimes chance going back 151 years to remake the site and the community around it.
”Its surrounded by single-family homes,” said Pritchard. “It’s only two miles from downtown, so for the last seven years, a lot of people in the neighborhood have been advocating for the State to do something here and engage the neighborhood along the way.”
Several ideas were floated: Locate the new State Archives there, build a Target, retail center or grocery store, turn the area into a park, renovate the building to create a training center.
Pritchard said the location is ideal for the type of housing that will fill an affordable niche and bring new neighbors to the community.
“It’s 15 acres,” Pritchard said. “If you were to take the parcel sizes of the neighborhoods around it, you could put 130 homes here. So, 130 homes on this site would be transformational for retail, for schools, for the other neighborhoods, for assessed values, it could be just transformational.”
Pritchard added that he believes the near east side is poised for a bounce back, as new bike paths on East New York and East Michigan Streets will be installed and a motorcycle gang clubhouse has been demolished. The Indianapolis Department of Public Works also plans to turn East New York and East Michigan Streets into two-way roads.
”This neighborhood is on the rise, and this site, the redevelopment of this site, will only make that exponentially quicker and bigger,” Pritchard said.
The Department of Metropolitan Development is expected to engage neighbors in talks about potential development of the site.
While Pritchard said the former Administration Building and Prison Chapel could be reused, other buildings, though designated as historic, have deteriorated or hold no significance to the neighborhood. The City of Indianapolis may have to petition to demolish the buildings that have been marked as historic.
