Coming this summer: 10th Street makeover

Housing, too, as Legacy Project continues to have an impact

Two years after Near Eastside stakeholders began designing their ideal omelette, it’s

East 10th Street between Woodruff Place and Keystone Avenue will be renovated this summer to include curb bump-outs, added green space, new street lights and a “sharrow” lane.

time to start breaking some eggs.

“For people in the neighborhood, there’s finally going to be something more tangible,” James Taylor said as he listed several projects that would complicate the lives this summer of anyone journeying through the East 10th Street corridor.

Taylor, chief executive officer of the John H. Boner Center and coordinator of the Super Bowl Legacy Project, said the projects represent a $23.8 million investment in the Near Eastside:

– A makeover of East 10th Street, between Woodruff Place and Keystone Avenue, to include curb bumpouts, added green space, new street lights and a “sharrow” lane. The latter term is a relatively new system in which bicycles and autos share the roadway (as they do now), but where infrastructure improvements make motorists much more aware of bicyclists, and even slow traffic to make bicycling safer.

Taylor said traffic along East 10th Street will be slow-going; occasionally, the busy thoroughfare will be completely shut down, forcing motorists to find alternative routes.

Ultimately, the plan is to renovate 10th Street from Massachusetts Avenue to Emerson Avenue, but that larger project has yet to be funded.

– Between 25 and 30 new or rehabilitated homes, to be completed by Indy Asset Development.

– $4 million in infrastructure improvements in a four-block area between East 10th and St. Clair streets, and between Tecumseh Street and Keystone Avenue. That project will include new “green” alleyways, rain gardens featuring rainwater filtration systems, and sewer repair where needed.

– Construction of St. Clair Place, a $6.5 million senior apartment complex at East 10th Street and Keystone Avenue. Featuring 33 one- and two-bedroom apartments, construction could begin as soon as August on the joint venture of Indy Asset Development and Riley Area Development Corp. Work should last about 10 months.

– Construction, already begun, of a $6 million renovation of People’s Health Center just east of the Boner Center.

– The recently completed Jefferson Apartments, a $4.8 million project involving apartments that serve as homeownership incubators.

“There’s going to be significant inconvenience,” Taylor said, a reference mostly to the renovation of East 10th Street, “but for a remarkable outcome.”

Much of the organizational work has been done by two elements of the Super Bowl 2012 Legacy Project, the Housing Development Committee and the East 10th Street Committee.

Taylor said the array of projects can be traced to a June 2008 meeting at Arsenal Technical High School as part of the Great Indy Neighborhoods initiative – a meeting that attracted 430 people. Taylor said that event’s theme was “Community Under Construction,” complete with blinking lights and construction tape. “Now, it’s very literal.”