Wednesday night, after our first family visit to Brics of 2012, I discovered a rendering along the Monon trail for a new office development known as Rockdale in the former Broad Ripple Pet Center along Westfield Boulevard. More information can be found at these links: 1 and 2. They are aiming to become the first LEED-certified construction in Broad Ripple, and they plan to be bicycle-friendly. The renderings and siteplan are linked below. I like it:
Gravel parking?
Chris Corr posted that the developer applied for zero parking spaces back in November.
Also, the second article that I linked to included this passage: “Hogan expects half the space to be spoken for in the next week. The price includes parking. The developer is in the process of securing spaces off site that are close to the property.”
So it sounds like they don’t intend to use that gravel lot as parking, which is interesting. There is a gravel parking lot just across the Monon Trail.
Used the nifty City “General Data Viewer” and the online property owner lookup to determine that the gravel lot to the south of the Rockwell property is part of the Canal property. (!)
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The gravel parking “across the Monon” is actually on Greenway property. When the Monon Trail was built, these blocks experienced a lot of disruption, and that gravel parking may have been unofficially or officially promised to area businesses.
Interesting proposal, I absolutely love the architecture of these designs. I believe this would be an excellent edition to the village.
Kind of has a midcentury look, but there’s too much E.I.F.S. and you’re going to have discoloration using it that close to the ground.
The architecture is fantastic and unique, I think this is a great addition.
Guys gravel parking lots are not allowed in Indianapolis. You may have them for a short period but you have to pave them after a certain time.
Phil, the two areas discussed here have been gravel parking lots since at least the early 1980’s.
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The city owns the one west of the Monon. It also owned the one south of the Rockwell site during the last decade as part of the water utility, until the sale to Citizens.
In my dealings w/ the developer they’ve referred to the project as Rockdale. And yes, the area immediately south of the property is Citizens Energy property. It will not be used for parking. The developers are currently in negotiations w/ CEG about landscaping the area. While I’m not personally keen on the architectural style it will transform an eyesore, I’m grateful to the developers for their sensitivity to both the Monon & the Canal. In Envision Broad Ripple, the community pitched the notion of treating properties along the Canal & Monon as having 2 frontages: the primary one in this case is along Westfield; secondary one faces the Monon. It is encouraging that the developers are embracing the notion of dual frontages and providing such sensitive treatment. Another plus is the tenant mix – office space (I understand primarly tech companies.) This is important as the community has continually stressed the need for a mix of commercial uses. With the forthcoming rehab of the former Depot site and other slated improvements along Cornell, this stretch of the Monon should be much better by this time next year.
Thanks for catching my mistake, Tom. I had Rockwell on my brain due to the musician from the 1980’s.
There is a fence up around the property as of this week, so it looks like things may start moving on this soon.
That’s what I thought when the fence went up around the old Marathon station, but I guess it doesn’t mean much 🙂
I thought the city owned the parking spaces west of the monon? Have you purchased them? A bit frustrating for those that frequent the monon.
I am curious as to why “Rockdale” has made the parking lot south of BRICS a tow away zone. I have many employees that park there because of where we work. There are cameras that watch us walk to our cars to keep us safe and now we can’t park there. The city needs to do something about this! It’s not fair to reserve parking when in the past 5 days no one has been using these spots day OR night.
To Ashley and Add, I’m not aware of parking issues in this area. It might be a good idea to call the Mayor’s Action Center if there are known abuses.