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There haven’t been any law firms or bail bonding companies that have leased space near the Indianapolis-Marion County Community Justice Campus in the Twin Aire neighborhood since the 140-acre campus opened in 2022.

But Gary Perel, a principal and senior director of retail at ALO Property Group LLC, thinks the neighborhood is primed for redevelopment.

To that end, ALO is working on a lease with a potential tenant for a 3,300-square-foot restaurant on the ground floor of a professional services building on the north side of the campus.

Perel said it’s been his primary goal to find a restaurant tenant for the building.

“This is what folks in the building are looking for,” Perel said, noting there aren’t many restaurant options in the area.

ALO hopes to have a lease executed with that tenant as soon as next week. If that happens, Perel estimated the restaurant could be open by fall.

Perel said there were originally two commercial buildings planned on the site, with the second building to offer an additional 80,000 square feet of potential office space.

Redevelopment ideas for Twin Aire have been percolating since 2016 when it was selected by the Indianapolis branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. as one of five neighborhoods in its Great Places community development and investment initiative.

Shortly thereafter, the administration of Mayor Joe Hogsett announced it had chosen the neighborhood’s former Citizens Energy coke plant at 2900 Prospect St. as the site for the Community Justice Campus. That resulted in $590 million in construction for a new jail, courts and ancillary services and the the moving of Marion County’s courts from downtown’s City-County Building to the southeast-side campus.

A Great Places strategy for Twin Aire, released in 2018, included a development plan built around the campus, outlining dozens of potential commercial, transportation and infrastructure projects. City and neighborhood leaders have expressed hopes that the opening of the campus would spur redevelopment in Twin Aire, but change has been slow to take root.

Aliya Wishner, the city’s director of communications and policy, told The Indiana Lawyer via email the city has been pleased to see some new developments in the nearby strip center and elsewhere.

“Kroger is in the process of undergoing renovations that are anticipated to be complete this year–not only keeping but improving a critical point of food access for the neighborhood. Infrastructure improvements have been underway in the area, including the trail along Southeastern, a rehabilitation of the Pleasant Run Greenway and a roundabout at English and Southeastern,” Wishner said.

Wishner said seven public buildings have been constructed to date on the CJC site, with plans for additional buildings in the future.

The Community Justice Campus is home to the Marion County Courts, housing 71 courtrooms shared by 37 superior and circuit court judges, as well as 45 magistrate judges.

In addition to the courts, the campus also includes the Marion County Jail, the Marion County Public Defender Agency, Marion County Probation Department and a Youth and Family Services Center.

Whether more government agencies, such as the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, will move their offices to the campus remains unclear.

Michael Leffler, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, said he did not have an update on any potential move.

“The prosecutor’s office will continue to be open to exploring potential opportunities as they emerge,” Leffler said in an email.

Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears was not available for an interview.

Mears has previously said his team is still trying to determine whether moving to the campus was preferable to staying downtown in Two Market Square Center, a Class B office building at 251 E. Ohio St.

He said the hesitancy arises from concerns over how such a move could increase the prosecutor’s operating costs, particularly since his office already signed a much less expensive 16-year, three-month lease extension in 2017.

“This has been a financially driven conversation, in terms of what’s ultimately going to be the cost” of going there “and what are going to be the costs associated with moving,” Mears said in 2021.

Multiple real estate sources said a move to the CJC would cost the prosecutor’s office an additional $7 to $8 per foot per year after factoring in development costs, utilities and other expenses, according to Indianapolis Business Journal.

Kim Reeves, vice president of development services for Browning Investments, also told IBJ in 2021 that any plans for a second professional building at the Community Justice Campus site were “in the hands of the city” and contingent upon finalizing contracts with the Prosecutor’s Office as its anchor tenant.

“The trigger for building No. 2 is based on the prosecutor,” she said. “We’ll work with the city to see how large the second building needs to be” if it moves forward.

She said the building would likely have three to five stories with per-floor square footage that is similar to the first building. It would also include some first-floor commercial uses.

Move of courts not welcomed by all

For some of the downtown attorneys and businesses linked to the legal system, the move of the courts, jail and other city departments from downtown to Twin Aire has eliminated the previous easy access to the judiciary.

Robert Hammerle, an of-counsel attorney specializing in criminal law at Hackman Hulett LLP, said the move of the courts was “regrettable” and had impacted attorneys on multiple levels.

“It’s left downtown a lawyer’s wasteland,” Hammerle said.

Hammerle said that, for lawyers and anyone visiting the Community Justice Campus, there is nowhere to go in terms of restaurants in the area.

He said people on jury duty are getting notice to bring their own lunches due to lack of outside eating options.

Access to court staff is also restricted and the interactions with other attorneys and judges is limited, unlike when court services were consolidated downtown.

“There was a closeness that developed. It was significant. Now that’s all gone,” Hammerle said.

J.P. Penn is the owner of downtown’s J.P. Bail Bonding. He’s been at 114 N. Delaware St. for almost 20 years.

When the courts and jail were still downtown, Penn was able to get walk-in traffic at his bail bonding business, something he said no longer happens during court hours.

“I no longer even go to the office now. I’m on call,” Penn said.

Penn said the move of the courts and jail to Twin Aire came as he was dealing with the emerging prominence of cash bonds, the COVID-19 pandemic and a gradual slowing of business.

He used to have multiple agents and his doors were never locked. Now, it’s just Penn and another agent.

“So, a lot has changed,” Penn said.

Attorneys staying put in downtown Indy

When the move was announced, Jeff Cardella wondered initially if there would be a mass exodus of attorneys from the downtown area to Twin Aire.

Cardella, an Indianapolis criminal defense and expungement attorney with an office on Massachusetts Avenue, acknowledged he also considered buying or renting a building in Twin Aire and leasing it out to bail bond companies and/or attorneys.

He said he has no interest in moving his office to be closer to the CJC.

Pre-pandemic, with the way the law was practiced, Cardella would drive downtown every day, park at his office, walk over to the City-County building and do morning sessions.

Then, he’d walk back to his office for lunch before heading back to the courts for afternoon legal work.

“It was basically half of my day was spent in the City-County building. And I just had to be within walking distance of it,” Cardella said.

After COVID ushered in the expanded use of remote, electronic options for court hearings and client consultations, things changed for Cardella.

He does expungements all over the state now in counties ranging from Dearborn to Lake.

Cardella said there are times when people have to show up for things in person, but he’s able to cast a wider geographic net.

He also does depositions via Zoom calls, although Cardella added that, for civil cases, he thought most attorneys were still doing those in person.

“Being close to this one specific building, it’s just not that important,” Cardella said.

Attorney/client interactions have also changed a lot in the last five years, Cardella noted, with it not being rare now to not meet a client in-person for an expungement case, given online payment options and the technical ability to communicate remotely.

Cardella said he has not heard anyone complain too much about the new CJC site.

One advantage of it is that it has ample parking, something Cardella said was sometimes an issue when the courts were located at the City-County building.

Kevin Potts owns Potts LLC, a downtown criminal defense and personal injury firm located on East Washington Street.

Potts said he did not anticipate or see the need to locate closer to the CJC and described the neighborhood around the campus as still underdeveloped.

With the influx of virtual hearings as well as virtual jail visitation, Potts said it has cut down on the need for day-to-day travel to court.

For Potts, the only downfall is that the move has significantly diminished the personal relationships amongst attorneys, judges and court staff.

“This creates many issues in communication, litigation and case resolution, not to mention the loss of camaraderie amongst the criminal justice community,” Potts said.

Future redevelopment around campus

Penn said he’s not opposed to changing locations, even though he’s been downtown for such an extended period.

At the moment, there’s no available space for lease for him in Twin Aire, Penn noted.

“It would depend on if it could fit my needs,” he said, adding that he would prefer a storefront location like his current site, as well as suitable lighting and a reasonable price.

Penn said he’d like to see a dedicated shuttle running from the City-County building to the jail.

The city released a request for proposal in 2023 regarding redevelopment of the Twin Aire Shopping Center and Twin Aire Drive-In sites.

After receiving five bids, the city held a public meeting where developers discussed their proposed redevelopment plans.

In its statement of need, the city noted that competitive responses would include:

Prioritizing redevelopment of the Twin Aire Shopping Center with expanded mixed use and retail opportunities with an emphasis on preservation and expansion of grocery anchor tenant.

Redevelopment of the Twin Aire Drive-in Site with an emphasis on single family homeownership opportunities and multifamily development–both with a mixture of housing types including workforce and affordable housing options.

Specific component that includes retail and office space for government, nonprofit, health, or career development organizations.

Incorporation of community amenities and benefits.

Wishner said the city and Health and Hospital Corporation are actively engaging in conversations with the developers hat were recommended for selection by the selection committee to thoroughly vet respondent teams and their proposals.

“Once we have finalized negotiations, we will share more information on the planned development phasing and timeline,” Wishner said.

Parel said the goal of building the Community Justice Center was to spur development in the Twin Aire neighborhood.

He said it’s also brought road infrastructure improvements and investments in residential real estate.

A big reason is the more than 2,000 people working at the Community Justice Campus, with close to 4,000 people traveling to the area on a daily basis.

He expects that kind of traffic to help the area “fill in” over the next decade, with more businesses and office space along Southeastern Avenue and surrounding streets.

The Indianapolis Department of Public Works also plans to build a $2.1 million trail along Southeastern Avenue to connect the Twin Aire neighborhood and the city’s Community Justice Campus with downtown.

Construction of the multi-use trail is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

It will stretch for just over one mile along the north side of Southeastern Avenue from Washington Street to Leeds Avenue, near Rural Street.

Wishner said the Southeastern Avenue Multi-Use Trail is under construction and is expected to be completed later this year.•

Demolition is underway on a pair of structures at downtown’s Pan Am Plaza as crews make way for a $250 million expansion of the Indiana Convention Center and construction of a 40-story, 800-room Signia by Hilton hotel.

The work is taking place over much of the block bordered by Illinois Street to the east, Georgia Street to the north, Capitol Avenue to the west, and West Louisiana Street to the south. The structures and public spaces being erased from the site include the former Pavilion at Pan Am event center at 201 S. Capitol Ave. and the Pan American Plaza, making way for vertical construction later this spring. A one-story, city-owned structure at 260 S. Illinois St. also is being demolished.

The structures are expected to be fully razed within the next few weeks, according to representatives with the Capital Improvement Board of Marion County, which operates the convention center, and AECOM Hunt, the construction manager for the project. The buildings are being torn down using four excavators.

“Over the course of the next couple of weeks, those structures will be demolished completely back down to the grade, and once that’s done, we’ll clear rubble and start excavation for foundations,” said Bill Sewall, vice president of AECOM Hunt. “In May, we will start to erect a tower crane and begin the foundations for the new Signia tower and convention center expansion. We’re close to that next major milestone.”

The entire sub-grade parking garage below the plaza already has been removed, leaving a gaping hole in the site with only the outer perimeter walls of the structure still in place. The garage will be rebuilt in order to serve the hotel.

The cost of redeveloping Pan Am Plaza is expected to cost more than $750 million, including the Signia by Hilton hotel and the expansion of the Indiana Convention Center.

The latter component will add 143,500 square feet of space, including extensive pre-function space and a 50,000-square-foot ballroom. The project also calls for an enclosed skywalk connecting the addition to the existing convention center across Capitol Avenue.

The 12-story Pan Am Tower office building at the northwest corner of Georgia and Capitol will not be affected by the development.

“We’ve, of course, seen progress since this project got started, but most of that has been underground,” said Andy Mallon, executive director of the CIB. “This [step] is certainly visible from office buildings and hotel rooms throughout downtown, so it’s exciting to hear from people as they see tangible progress being made.”

New utility lines are expected to be run to the site as part of the project, which will involve the closure of Illinois Street’s northbound lanes from April 1 to July 1. That portion of the project will run new steam and chilled water lines, as well as new communication lines from AT&T.

Construction crews and the CIB are working closely with the Indianapolis Department of Public Works to ensure that businesses affected by the closure between Georgia and South streets will still be accessible.

The structure and exterior of the hotel are expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

Sewall said the project remains on track for an autumn 2026 opening. Of the $410 million allotted for subcontractors on the project, only $19.2 million has been awarded, with 41% of that going toward diverse companies. Several bid packages are set to go out in late April, focused on mechanical, plumbing, drywall, masonry and interior components. Additional bids for more specific interior components like ornamental metals and bathroom fixtures will be due in June.

“Success of those bidding rounds is pretty vital to the remaining success of the project,” Sewall said.

The city of Indianapolis could ultimately pay in excess of $1.6 billion for the redevelopment project, after taking into account the total debt service the city is expected to owe on hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds for the project.

In November, the city sold $581 million in bonds for the development through the Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank, consisting of $436.8 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds for the hotel portion of the project, and another $155 million for the convention center expansion.

Including interest, the total cost for the project is now expected to be around $1.63 billion.

The space on the City-County Building’s 12th floor didn’t initially look like much—blank walls, sticky notes indicating a need for new window blinds, empty cubicles with the names of employees on white printer paper—but for the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, the new home was a big deal.

Kurt Christian, the department’s chief communications officer, described the agency’s former space at 1200 Madison Ave. as having a “1970s library basement vibe.”

The city had rented offices for the department there since 2008. The location was 2 miles south of the City-County Building, which is in the core of downtown on East Market Street. Employees felt cut off from other government agencies, and visitors often got lost wandering the six-story structure.

The relocation last fall kicked off a $7 million, three-phased move for several city agencies from various rented spaces to either the City-County Building or the new Community Justice Campus, on Southeastern Avenue. City officials say the moves will eventually bring cost savings, foster positive employee morale and improve services to the public.

The agency worked with an outside vendor to move most of the BNS department’s furniture, but Eva Flick, deputy director of the department, oversaw the process. The relocation created a modern, open-concept space that allows better collaboration. A labyrinth of interior walls wasn’t conducive to efficiently handling matters of building code compliance, inspections and permitting.

“We have found that things are much more lively, and, like, there’s definitely a stronger energy since we’ve been in this building versus when we were at Madison. … Our offices were next to each other, and it was still like miles away,” Flick told IBJ.

Plus, the new space has an amenity the Madison Avenue space didn’t: break rooms with kitchen sinks, “where you can wash your dishes in the sink instead of in the bathroom, which is huge,” Flick said.

The move also allowed the department to make space for new employees. Amy Wunder, deputy director of construction and business, told IBJ the office is seeking two program managers to oversee right-of-way and stormwater matters.

“[The move] really gave us the opportunity to reevaluate some of our existing organizational structure,” Wunder said.

The BNS move is just the start. When city-county courts moved in 2022 to the Community Justice Campus in the Twin Aire neighborhood 2-1/2 miles southeast of downtown, the City-County Building was left half empty. That opened plenty of space for agencies located off site to move in.

In the first phase of the transition, which cost $2 million, workers from the Parks and Recreation planning division and the Department of Public Works engineering division also vacated 1200 Madison Ave. That move—including the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services workers—involved about 250 employees.

In the upcoming second phase, workers with Marion County Community Corrections and Marion County Forensic Services Agency will vacate the former Jail I at 40 S. Alabama St. The building is set to be demolished by the end of the year to make room for redevelopment.

Corrections will move to the City-County Building in May. Forensics is expected to move this fall to a facility under construction now on the Community Justice Campus, as will the Marion County coroner. The coroner is currently in rented space on McCarty Street.

Phase II is projected to cost $1.8 million, city spokeswoman Aliya Wishner told IBJ in an email.

The administration is still planning the final phase. Moving costs have not been projected, but the city expects to spend $3.7 million on renovating the City-County Building’s east wing to make room for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Downtown District.

The district, currently in Union Station at 39 W. Jackson Place, will join other IMPD agencies in the east wing. The Downtown District includes officers with the homeless unit and mobile crisis assistance team.

Upfront cost, future saving

While the Hogsett administration expects to shell out more than $7 million for all the costs associated with the reshuffling, it estimates $450,000 in annual savings on operating costs. That’s based on the cost of renting and operating non-city-owned spaces compared with each agency’s costs in city-owned spaces.

In order to update the 62-year-old downtown tower and demolish the former Jail I, the Indianapolis Bond Bank is in the process of selling $23.3 million in facility revenue bonds.

Joe Glass, executive director of the Bond Bank, gave a presentation before the City-County Council Administration and Finance Committee in November where he laid out the City-County Building remodeling costs.

On the first floor, the city aims to create a more efficient and modern public-facing space for several city departments.

About $3 million of the bonds will fund the gutting of courtrooms and holding cells on the fourth and sixth floors. Those funds are also expected to pay for office furniture, flooring, wiring, appliances, updated break rooms, moving costs and a remodeling to fit IMPD workspaces in the east wing.

An update of the building’s electrical and HVAC systems is expected to cost $10 million.

Repairs to the city employee parking garage will cost just over $10 million and are expected to be complete by December. The city intends to ensure the garage is structurally sound, repair areas damaged by water leaks, reseal the structure with a water-resistant membrane and restripe the lot.

Although the City-County Building and Jail I are owned by the city of Indianapolis, the city pays an independent municipal corporation called the Marion County Building Authority to maintain and manage the spaces. Those payments cover rent (at a lower-than-average rate) utilities, maintenance and repairs.

After all the moves, the city will pay $358,000 to the Marion County Building Authority for the additional space it will use in the City-County Building, according to a representative from the building authority. Last year, the city paid $6.5 million to the agency.

The city pays the building authority $9 to $10 per square foot per year to occupy the City-County Building. At the end of last year, the average asking rent for Class A office space downtown was $24 to $25 per square foot per year, according to the local office of Chicago-based real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Other city expenses will stop, such as rents paid for non-city-owned spaces. Ending the lease at 1200 Madison Ave. will save the administration $1.3 million a year by itself. The move will also eventually cut out rent, utilities and maintenance from Union Station, Jail I and the McCarty Street building that houses the Coroner’s Office.