Here’s an idea: A venue to help promote urban neighborhoods

Many young, educated adults visit the Harrison Center for the Arts each month,

This conceptual drawing by Perkins Von Deylen Architects shows how the 1961 building which is now part of the Harrison Center for the Arts would be renovated into an Urban Living Center.

attending the monthly First Friday art openings or events such as the Independent Music and Art Festival. Why not, as long as they’re here, convince them to become a larger part of Indy’s burgeoning urban environment?

That’s a question which has occurred to Harrison Center Executive Director Joanna Taft, who earlier this year hatched a plan to convert about a thousand square feet of Harrison Center space into an Urban Living Center – space which would become the focal point of a multi-pronged effort to “send a clear, unmistakable message to isolated suburban residents: community awaits you here.”

The Urban Living Center’s present scope includes neighborhoods within the Indianapolis Public School district, with an eye for future focus on the homes being created by federal stimulus dollars – homes which currently far outpace the pool of potential homebuyers.

Today, about three months since she formalized the Urban Living Center idea, Taft is pleasantly surprised just how well-received the plan has been. “We’ve really seen partnerships pay off – in real dollars,” said Taft. “We’ve interviewed over 60 stakeholders, and the vast majority have been very enthusiastic about a program focused on the message that urban living is a good thing.”

The Harrison Center for the Arts as it appears now.

Organizations which have already funded the project include the Indianapolis Coalition for Neighborhood Development, in conjunction with the Indianapolis  Neighborhood Housing Partnership; Indianapolis Downtown, Inc.; King Park Area Development Corp.; the City of Indianapolis through its façade grant program; Local Initiatives Support Corp.; Citizens Gas, and the Efroymson Family Foundation.

Other organizations which Taft feels secure in saying will support the program include Partners in Housing Development Corp.; the Indy Land Bank; the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors; the IUPUI Solution Center, and the IUPUI School of Public and Environmental Affairs. The latter organization – SPEA – wants to work to help better identify the Urban Living Center’s target audience, and is so enthusiastic about the project that it has applied for a grant to fund the effort, rather than asking the Harrison Center to come up with the money. “It’s key and significant to us that they would do that,” she said.

Beyond the idea of funding, Taft has letters of support from five community development corporations, with other potential partners and/or advisory board members including several traditional public schools, charter schools and private schools. Other potential partners include Downtown churches, the Central Indiana Bicycling Association, IndyHub, Public Allies, neighborhood associations, retailers, and relocation staff of major corporations.

Frank Hagaman, president of Partners in Housing, said he is drawn to the Urban Living Center project because “the whole idea of a holistic marketing effort for the various different neighborhoods is a very good thing for the city.”

He also applauded the idea’s focus on the artistic community and the enclaves it might help create – much like the Wheeler Arts Community in Fountain Square. “Thinking in terms of attracting peer groups, affinity groups, is very important,” Hagaman said.

Taft, who has been executive director of the Harrison Center since its 2001 inception, is enjoying the benefits of experienced help with the project – in the person of Sarah Lester, who worked previously with the highly successful “Create Here” program in Chattanooga, Tenn. That program, she said, found Chattanooga civic leaders asking how they could harness the economic potential of creative persons. “It happens in tandem,” Lester said. “Creativity leads to innovation, and to economic development.”

Taft and Lester hope to convert space formerly used by VSA Indiana, a Harrison Center tenant which brings arts programs to special-needs youngsters but which has faced dramatic funding cutbacks. That space, many years ago the offices of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, would become a “hospitality center” which would bear a coffeehouse feel – without actually being a coffeehouse. Imagine barristas who are also ambassadors for Downtown living.

Tamara Zahn, president of Indianapolis Downtown, Inc., said her organization is excited to partner with the Harrison Center in this project. “More than ever,” Zahn said, “Indianapolis must take an aggressive, proactive approach to showcase the benefits and opportunities of city living. While IDI works hard to showcase Downtown residential opportunities, and we will continue to do so, an Urban Living Center can provide a one-stop-shop approach to build awareness about options throughout the city.”

In keeping with the Harrison Center’s mission, the Urban Living Center would also serve as an art gallery. Lester called it a “City Gallery and Resources Café.” But the Urban Living Center would be much more than a room full of brochures and information. The strategies for the full-scale initiative would fall into four categories:

• A website, which would highlight not only distinctive residential and commercial buildings, but also the neighborhoods which make up the patchwork quilt of residential opportunities. (The website will expand and rebrand the Unsung Indy website created as part of the recent program funded by the Indiana Association for Community Economic Development to boost selected neighborhoods.)
• A robust marketing effort which strongly incorporates neighborhood leaders and Neighborhood Stabilization Program team members neighborhood identifies. Marketing and promotional efforts range from advertising to individual and group tours of neighborhoods, as well as creative community events such as First Friday art openings, monthly neighborhood dinners, or house parties given by “key connectors” – those neighborhood people who are eager and able to serve as endorsements of urban living.
• A “customer service triage” service, basically a financial feasibility assessment in which trained staff would help determine whether potential buyers are best served by a traditional bank or other funding sources.
• A personal connection between buyers and developers and/or realtors.

In her formal proposal to potential partners, Taft said the Downtown and near-Downtown areas of Indianapolis have quality housing as well as viable financial purchasing tools, but “Indy’s young suburban population isn’t buying. Those living outside the city limits find comfort in predictable retail options and a car-per-person mode of transportation,” she said. “Indy’s young suburban population isn’t buying. Those living outside the city limits find comfort in predictable retail options and a car-per-person mode of transportation. The truth is, until now, we haven’t been convincing them to consider the alternative: urban living is good living. What they’re missing is a sense of neighborly belonging, distinctive community, an active lifestyle, and dynamic cultural amenities.”

Taft sees the Urban Living Center especially boosting home sales efforts in neighborhoods which have received federal stimulus funding – areas in which residents earn 120 percent or less of median income (which is currently defined at about $59,000 for a family of three). That list includes King Park, Mapleton-Fall Creek, Near East, Corcord, and areas served by Riley Area Development Corp. and Southeast Neighborhood Development. Other areas of focus are neighborhoods such as Martindale on the Monon, where homeownership programs geared for people at 80 percent of median income are in place.

Taft, whose resume also includes the creation of the highly successful Herron High School, understands that some may wonder how an Urban Living Center fits into her organization’s mission. She quotes that mission as self-explanatory: “The Harrison Center for the Arts seeks to be a catalyst for renewal in the city of Indianapolis by fostering awareness, appreciation and community for arts and culture.”

She said that a part of the idea behind Herron High School was to effectively re-use a wonderful neighborhood building which was in danger of standing empty. Now, she said, the downsizing of VSA Indiana and the departure earlier this year of another significant tenant, The Nature Conservancy, has brought the issue even closer to home.

“The vacancy in our own building is a threat,” she said, “but we believe in turning a challenge into opportunity.” Now, she added, she gets to practice what historic preservationists call “adaptive reuse” in the Harrison Center’s very own building.

– Bill Brooks

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