While waiting at a bus stop on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, Rayford Thomas looks down the street, first to his left then to his right.
Some of what he sees, including a renovated building and fresh sidewalks, is encouraging. The rest, however, raises deep concerns for Thomas.
“You can just go around the corner and see some old, dilapidated houses,” he said. “We’re making progress around here, but there is still a lot that needs to be done.”
Thomas’ bittersweet assessment appears to be shared by many of his fellow residents in the United Northwest Area, also known as UNWA.
Located just northwest of downtown, the area includes some of the city’s best known places (primarily on the perimeter), including the historic Golden Hill Estate to the north, the Children’s Museum, four popular parks and three golf courses.
During the early 20th century, UNWA experienced population growth mostly due to industrial expansion. Within the last 40 years, however, the area, especially its central portion, has endured a steady decline.
According to The Polis Center, between 1950 and 1960 UNWA’s population changed rapidly from a racially diverse neighborhood to one that was predominantly African-American and lower income.
Later, setbacks such as economic disinvestment, the departure of retail shops, the closing of entertainment venues such as Riverside Amusement Park, highway construction and unusually high rates of crime prompted a large number of residents to leave the area.
According to a report from the Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development, which designated UNWA as a special need area, the population declined by more than a fourth between 1970 and 1990. By the early 1990s, unemployment was at 16 percent with a media household income of $14,7000.
Progress
Within the last 20 years, intervention from concerned residents, civic leaders and local elected officials have sparked efforts to restore to the vitality of UNWA, especially along Martin Luther King (MLK) Street, which many consider the heart of the area.
Since that time the Center for Leadership Development (CLD) mentoring organization, has built a new facility, Holy Angels Catholic Church opened a new school and the Blackburn Health Center, operated by Wishard Hospital has been made available to residents. In addition, city crews have freshened sidewalks and streets.
‘This area is definitely on the rebound,” said Keith Veal, president of The United Northwest Area Community Development Corp. (UNWADC), which is charged with chartering a vision that will move the neighborhood forward. “The investments the city has made along the MLK corridor are important and will help spur transformational development.”
Veal said the UNWADC has been working on housing related projects, as well as a new Family Dollar store and a 40-unit low income senior apartment building, Glenn Howard Manor, named after the late state senator who once represented the area.
Another economic development partner in the area has been Flanner House, a multi-service center located in UNWA that provides programs for residents of all ages.
“There’s actually a lot of exciting stuff going on here,” said Wendy Cooper, economic development for Flanner House.
She noted the upcoming opening of the Triple R Mustang Ranch near 30th and MLK, which is owned by Delonzo Rhyne and dedicated to restoring and customizing Ford Mustang sports cars for collectors.
“Now, instead of seeing an old, rusty warehouse, people coming off the Interstate will see a freshened building with a nice showroom,” Cooper said.
She added that two vacant buildings near 30th and Clifton Streets will be converted into apartments, and Bar-B-Cue Heaven restaurant on MLK is adding a deck to enhance its ambience and comfort, and has purchased a nearby closed liquor store that will be replaced by a new building offering commercial space. In addition, the new Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship will open in a shopping mall that was once on the decline and now has a restaurant, barbershop and beauty salon.
“These are all low budget projects that have a significant impact,” Cooper said. “When we welcome people, we want to welcome them to a neighborhood that’s on its way up.”
Concerns
Some concerned individuals, while appreciating the gains made in UNWA recently, believe that stronger leadership is needed in the area to deliver substantial progress.
Mike Sprovtsoff, a local commercial real estate broker and developer, who was once on the UNWADC board, said he has noticed small infrastructure improvements such as some new sidewalks, paved streets, business development near 16th Street and aesthetic improvements near Burdsal Parkway.
“Still, it would be nice to see some real development actually take place there,” he said. “I love this area, it is historic and there are a lot of good people here. They deserve a powerful community development corporation, and that’s been sorely missed for quite a long time.”
Historically, churches have long played a significant role in planning UNWA initiatives within the UNWADC. Pastor Ivan Douglas Hicks of First Baptist Church North, however, says the process has become more difficult in recent years with UNWADC’s current leadership, which he says has squandered development opportunities and placed too much emphasis on low income housing.
“We have great potential to create and attract good businesses in this area, but we also have a floundering development corporation that is trying to replace lost funding by allowing substandard structures to be built,” Hicks said.
In 2009, the City of Indianapolis made the MLK Street corridor a Tax Increment Finance (TIF) District, which made it qualified to receive special funding for assistance in development projects to spur commercial growth.
Hicks said the TIF classification enabled the UNWADC to purchase land, which in turn was sold to the developer who has planned to construct teh Family Dollar store.
“I saw renderings of the location, and they looked like the nice, fancy locations you see in suburban areas,” he said. “However, the building that will actually be constructed might not look nothing like that.”
In fact, according to Hicks, the building will have a very basic design and its Family Dollar logo will face a side street, not MLK, where most of the traffic is. He contacted Family Dollar’s headquarters in North Carolina.
“The company said it would be willing to do whatever the community wants to do, but if a nicer location was put up, the UNWADC won’t make as much money,” Hicks said. “Other new projects have been nice, even the new Community Spirits liquor store. So it is an affront to the community to allow an inferior building to be put up.”
Hicks added that he was told that the Glenn Howard Manor was proposed without consultation or permission from the Howard family.
Veal said that’s not the case, and he had spoken with Howard’s wife when the concept originally came up.
“I think she was pleased because he had not been honored anywhere inside the UNWA community,” Veal stated. “Senator Howard was my friend and my mentor, and this is our way of thanking him for the legacy of service that he left this community.”
Cooper, who once worked for the Department of Metropolitan Development, shares Hicks’ concerns about the Family Dollar’s design. When she was with the city, the department offered a $650,000 incentive package to have the store located here, facing MLK.
“We have the opportunity to create the premiere MLK street in the country,” she said. “So the reason why we put together that package was so the Family Dollar could face MLK Street and people could have windows to see what’s going on. If you walk through Massachusetts Ave., Broad Ripple, Fountain Square, or any other commercial node, being able to see people in and out of the building is part of what makes a store an attractive and safe place to shop.”
Cooper said ultimately, Family Dollar decided it did not want to take the incentive and wanted instead to build the store the way it thought it was best, although the UNWADC could have used incentive money to encourage them to do otherwise. She added, however, that she was not questioning UNWADC’s or Family Dollar’s intentions, noting that the project will help develop jobs, a goal Flanner House shares.
Veal said there was significant public input in the process.
“To say that it’s going to be of lesser quality than other stores really misunderstands the end result of the vetting, because the concern going into this was that this store not look like other poor quality Family Dollar stores, “ Veal said.
He added that the plan to place the Family Dollar’s door away from MLK was a compromise reached mainly for safety purposes.
“The developer didn’t want to have a situation where you have patrons coming out on the street than have to carry their items around to the other side of the building,” Veal said.
About UNWA
The history of the United Northwest Area (UNWA) can be traced back to the 1830s with the opening of the Central Canal and the construction of a cotton mill near the spot where Michigan Road crossed the canal, which led to a small settlement called Cottontown.
Today it is generally agreed that UNWA’s borders are 38th Street (Crown Hill Cemetery) to the north, Meridian Street to the east, 16th street (Riverside neighborhood) to the south and the White River to the west. According to the United Northwest Area Development Corp., the most recent population count included 16,378 residents living in 3,360 dwellings.
