[tysgs]

The airport has a lot of positive energy behind it right now, so I think it deserves its own thread

FedEx:
Jan 26, 2018-Plans to pump $1.5 billion into its Indianapolis hub in the coming years.
Dec 04, 2017-Planning to invest $385 million into new equipment at its hub at Indianapolis International Airport.
Sep 13, 2016-Planning a $170 million investment in its hub at Indianapolis International Airport.
Not directly airport related: Oct 10, 2017-Plans to build a $259 million small-package distribution center in Greenwood.

An enormous amount of nonstop flights have been added as well, here is a list of the new nonstop flights the airport has announced or started in the past year:
Alaska/Virgin America: San Francisco and Seattle/Tacoma
Allegiant: Austin, Charleston, Destin–Fort Walton Beach Airport, Sarasota, Phoenix/Mesa
Delta: Paris–Charles de Gaulle and Seattle/Tacoma + made Salt Lake city year round and increased capacity to Cancun, Minneapolis, New York JFK, Orlando, and Raleigh
Frontier: Austin, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Tampa
Southwest: Austin, Cancun, Newark, New Orleans, San Diego, and Oakland
United: Added a second daily San Francisco flight

Allegiant also plans to become the “hometown airline” of Indianapolis, and just opened an aircraft/crew base at the airport, with plans to expand on their presence at the airport
According to the Exec Director of the airport, Delta is also planning on making Indianapolis a “connecting point”

I also heard that the city is trying to get USPS to move their facility from downtown to the airport, the post master general even went and toured but nothing came of it and for now USPS doesn’t seem that interested.

 

[GarfieldPark]

Thanks for summarizing all of the good airport related news. I knew a lot had been happening - but I hadn't seen it all listed together like that. Great to see. I do wish the USPS would move out of the three blocks it sits on in an increasingly attractive part of downtown. Those big mail trucks trying to make tight turns in or out of the buildings are always cluttering up traffic, especially during the morning rush on Illinois Street - or when the trucks are trying to make left turns onto South Street off of Illinois.

 

[tysgs]

Thanks for summarizing all of the good airport related news. I knew a lot had been happening - but I hadn't seen it all listed together like that. Great to see. I do wish the USPS would move out of the three blocks it sits on in an increasingly attractive part of downtown. Those big mail trucks trying to make tight turns in or out of the buildings are always cluttering up traffic, especially during the morning rush on Illinois Street - or when the trucks are trying to make left turns onto South Street off of Illinois.

Agreed, those three blocks USPS has its hands on are prime real estate for future development. Almost reminds me of the jail site next to the transit center, however, that will be up for grabs soon.

USPS used to have a hub at IND, I wonder what happened to their old facilities out there and if they could be revitalized today...

Redevelopment talks around the old terminal area have slowed down recently, so hopefully the city finds someone to do something useful with all that extra land...

 

[cdc guy]

Agreed, those three blocks USPS has its hands on are prime real estate for future development. Almost reminds me of the jail site next to the transit center, however, that will be up for grabs soon.

USPS used to have a hub at IND, I wonder what happened to their old facilities out there and if they could be revitalized today...

Redevelopment talks around the old terminal area have slowed down recently, so hopefully the city finds someone to do something useful with all that extra land...

USPS doesn't own its three blocks. A landlord does (and I suspect it's some kind of real estate investment vehicle that specializes in Federal Lease properties).

Often the various Federal agencies and related corporations sign really long leases. That complex was built in the 70s, so I suspect it was probably a 40-99 year lease. If 40, it might just have been renewed. In either case it has a long, long time to run.

I agree that USPS should be at the airport. (I've read elsewhere that it was the USPS Express Mail facility that was there previously. It moved to Cincinnati, which had a lot of takeoff/landing capacity after Delta pulled out.)

It would be really, really expensive to (1) buy out the lease, so as to move the USPS elsewhere, (2) build and equip a new USPS facility elsewhere in advance of the move, and (3) buy the property from the landlord.

A buyer would be paying for it three times. Which means that the only logical buyer is a municipal redevelopment authority that has bonding capability...and that means paying for it four times because they'd probably have to give the land away to a developer as an incentive.

It's no wonder to me that it's still there.

 

[indyurban]

Speaking of post office buildings, this article is timely:

As Work Space, Old Post Offices Have a Timeless Allure

The article talks about cities like Chicago and New York transforming their post office buildings into office uses. Other cities though are tearing their's down like Portland:

Not every postal facility has a second life. The service’s distribution center near downtown Portland, Ore., is slated for demolition under plans by a local economic development agency, Prosper Portland.

The organization bought the property in 2016, eager to take control of a site that connects several neighborhoods in and near downtown, said Sarah Harpole, a project manager at Prosper Portland.

...

“We’re looking a high-density development that necessitates that demolition of the building,” Ms. Harpole said. “It has limited functionality.”

I think demolishing our post office for high density uses would be better for Indy. We might be losing an example of Brutalist architecture but if it's high density, I think it's worth the trade off. Also, Aaron Renn talked about daylighting Pogue's Run to revitalize the area and I'm not sure but I think Pogue's Run runs under a portion of the post office building. There's student projects from Ball State involved with daylighting Pogue's Run running through the post office building like this one:

Yonkers, NY daylit the Saw Mill River and it looks great:

 

[Sunday_Bloody_Sundae]

This new forum design. Sucks. I'm out. It's not mobile friendly. And the general Indianapolis development tab disappeared

 

[IndyMailMan]

USPS doesn't own its three blocks. A landlord does (and I suspect it's some kind of real estate investment vehicle that specializes in Federal Lease properties).

Often the various Federal agencies and related corporations sign really long leases. That complex was built in the 70s, so I suspect it was probably a 40-99 year lease. If 40, it might just have been renewed. In either case it has a long, long time to run.

I agree that USPS should be at the airport. (I've read elsewhere that it was the USPS Express Mail facility that was there previously. It moved to Cincinnati, which had a lot of takeoff/landing capacity after Delta pulled out.)

It would be really, really expensive to (1) buy out the lease, so as to move the USPS elsewhere, (2) build and equip a new USPS facility elsewhere in advance of the move, and (3) buy the property from the landlord.

A buyer would be paying for it three times. Which means that the only logical buyer is a municipal redevelopment authority that has bonding capability...and that means paying for it four times because they'd probably have to give the land away to a developer as an incentive.

It's no wonder to me that it's still there.

Joined the forum after a LONG time of lurking just to clear up a few things.

The current P&DC was built in the 60's, moving across South Street from what is now the Greyhound terminal. You can still see the old docks on the west end of the terminal.

The building is leased to the USPS, and the lease was very recently renewed for a period of, I believe, 20 years. As part of that lease agreement, substantial investment was just made in improving the facility and fixing a lot of serious structural problems that had developed in the building. That project is in its very final phases now...most of the big stuff is done.

Prior to that lease being extended and the improvements being made, USPS explored the possibility of moving the P&DC operations out to Ameriplex, which is home to the large Mail Processing Annex, or MPA. While it made sense to make that move, the timing was incredibly poor. This was around the same time the USPS began shutting down smaller P&DC's all over the state and consolidating those operations in Indianapolis. Indy is now distributing mail for daily delivery as far north as Rennselaer and as far south as Madison, and all the way to the east and west borders of Central Indiana. P&DC's in cities such as Kokomo, Lafayette, Muncie, and so on were closed, and additional capacity was required in Indy to handle the mail.

In order to make that work, more of the mail processing operation was moved out to the MPA, and the MPA expanded to a second building next door at Ameriplex...the building that would have been the logical home of a new P&DC. Thus, it was decided to keep the P&DC in its current home. The building is obviously massive, with mail processing happening on two of the three floors. The basement is used for equipment storage these days, unlike in the past. It's a bit spooky down there...I won't lie!

The area around the airport currently has three facilities that handle mail. The MPA at Ameriplex, which is over a million square feet between the two buildings, the HASP facility which is the one you can see from the tarmac at IND, and the smaller High School Road annex, which is where Express Mail that is bound for airplanes is handled. FedEx is the exclusive contractor for air-bound Express Mail. FedEx is actually the USPS's largest contractor/supplier.

In short, the P&DC isn't going anywhere anytime soon. As someone who owns a number of trucks that run in and out of that building nearly 24 hours a day, I can tell you that I'd love nothing more than this facility to be closed and moved out towards the airport with the rest of the facilities. Getting in and out of the building can be a pain on an average day, and a disaster when there's a major event happening downtown. The worst event of the year is, hands down, the Monster Jam at Lucas Oil Stadium, followed closely by Motocross. A lot of the 5k/running events are also a pain for us because of the road closures that occur around the building. Thursday night Colts games are no picnic either, but thankfully very little traffic goes in and out of the building on Sunday afternoons.

I'm hoping that when this current lease ends, or sometime close to that time frame, that the P&DC is relocated. That real estate is too prime for that current use. It'll happen someday...it has to. But it's quite far down the road unfortunately.

 

[IndyMailMan]

Agreed, those three blocks USPS has its hands on are prime real estate for future development. Almost reminds me of the jail site next to the transit center, however, that will be up for grabs soon.

USPS used to have a hub at IND, I wonder what happened to their old facilities out there and if they could be revitalized today...

Redevelopment talks around the old terminal area have slowed down recently, so hopefully the city finds someone to do something useful with all that extra land...

See my reply to CDC Guy...the USPS operations at IND are still very alive and well. It's less noticeable since there isn't a fleet of USPS planes around anymore as FedEx does all the air transport for them. The best hope would be some kind of expansion of the facilities at Ameriplex.

 

[cdc guy]

There's student projects from Ball State involved with daylighting Pogue's Run running through the post office building like this one:

1. This concept isn't strictly "daylighting". The Pogue's Run Box Culvert runs under the CSX viaduct from New York St. just east of I-70 down to Meridian, then under Meridian almost to Merrill where it makes a sharp westward turn and runs under the Rolls Royce garage, the parking-ramp end of the Post Office, turns southwest and goes under the corner of LOS just inside the southeast leg of the "superbeam" that holds up the roof and upper decks, then turns westward again before dumping into White River. It's a relocation and a fully-constructed watercourse, more of a canal.

(If you want to see exactly where it runs through LOS, go to MapIndy and look at the Pictometry from 2006. The top of the box is very prominent.)

2. While the project is creative, the Youtube video shows something that looks a lot like the upper end of the Canal, something that Aaron Renn has described as like a "suburban office park amenity".

3. The engineering problem is that Pogue's Run is the major storm sewer for the southeast and southwest parts of downtown (as well as the close-in parts of the Near East Side) and it tends to flash, i.e. flood when rainy, downstream of Brookside Park where there is a massive retention basin that slows the flow from farther upstream. The channel would have to be engineered to accommodate a lot of water quickly, and there couldn't be too much permanent activity space close to the "normal" water's edge.

 

[indyurban]

We shoudn't knock the design just because the student wasn't a landscape designer and I don't think was meant to be definitive. That said, I agree that it does look like the canal a bit and if we ever do reuse Pogue's Run downtown, I'd prefer to see something more natural looking like the Saw Mill River daylighting and to differentiate with the canal.

The idea of daylighting or resurfacing/diverting Pogue's Run though especially up the postal building land is sound and really creative I thought. If the postal office can't move yet for some time, there are other student projects that use different courses for Pogue's Run like this one and looks like it just uses a parking lot of the postal facility (or a small post office building or West Merrill Street not quite sure):

For this one, Pogue's Run could continue on it's current path instead of diverting south since a lot of the vacant land by McCarthy Street/Sand Street is unused and would revitalize that area. They could also demolish the Rolls Royce parking garage and rebuild it somewhere else so Pogue's Run can continue further. Not using the postal office land looks more difficult however but doable.

 

[cdc guy]

This new forum design. Sucks. I'm out. It's not mobile friendly. And the general Indianapolis development tab disappeared

There is an "exit enhanced mobile view" button in the upper left dropdown menu. It works.

 

[ibthebigd]

Hotels

It's sad how poor the hotel offerings by the airport are compared to othe similar sized cities.

 

[GarfieldPark]

It's sad how poor the hotel offerings by the airport are compared to othe similar sized cities.

Yes. Probably a lot of that has to do with moving the main airport terminal and its highway access about ten years ago. It used to be that the main cluster of hotels was near I-465 at the Airport Expressway. Now there are some out west near R Reagan Parkway along with some of the ones still remaining at 465 and the Airport Expressway area. They're split up into a few different areas - and none are really very impressive. The big old Adams Mark was kind of nice back twenty or so years ago. It had about 400 rooms. Not sure what its current brand is. There was also a pretty good sized Hilton that was very close to the old terminal. I'm not even sure if it is still there.

 

[rnimry]

It's sad how poor the hotel offerings by the airport are compared to othe similar sized cities.

I know there's a nice large piece of land right in front of the parking garage at IND. I always thought that's where they'd put a hotel for that airport. My guess is they want people downtown spending money rather than being out there for a night.

 

[Round Rock]

I know there's a nice large piece of land right in front of the parking garage at IND. I always thought that's where they'd put a hotel for that airport. My guess is they want people downtown spending money rather than being out there for a night.

Does anyone have the rendering of the proposed hotel back when the new terminal was built? I thought the airport bought the plan from the architectural firm and had it in reserve for the right time. I remember a nice rendering in IBJ back then.

 

[cdc guy]

Does anyone have the rendering of the proposed hotel back when the new terminal was built? I thought the airport bought the plan from the architectural firm and had it in reserve for the right time. I remember a nice rendering in IBJ back then.

Found this in the IBJ archives:

 

[rnimry]

Found this in the IBJ archives:

This is what they have at O'Hare Airport in Chicago.

 

[tysgs]

Infosys picks Indianapolis International Airport site for 3,000-job hub

https://www.indystar.com/story/news...new-indianapolis-jobs-announcement/546546002/

 

[cdc guy]

Story on WTHR.com:

Indianapolis Airport Pursuing "First-Class" Hotel

Indianapolis Airport Authority is pursuing "a nationally-branded or independent first-class, full-service hotel which connects to the existing airport terminal."

The IAA has notified several dozen developers who might be interested in the project. That includes designing, developing, financing, operating and maintaining the new hotel.

Documents show the IAA is interested in a design that's "modern, sophisticated and comfortable with high-end finishes," that reflects a "sense of place" to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area."

 

[Sunday_Bloody_Sundae]

What all this tells me is that urban core with mass transit isn't the only thing that attracts tech companies