The Indy Eleven stadium site in downtown Indianapolis.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration is serious about the possibility of turning the proposed Indy Eleven soccer stadium property into a park or a memorial site to honor its history as an early cemetery grounds rather than let it be developed, the mayor’s spokeswoman confirmed Friday.
The nearly 20-acre downtown site on the east bank of the White River is being developed by Keystone Group as an entertainment district anchored by a 20,000-seat soccer stadium for the Indy Eleven, but that stadium is now on hold as the Hogsett administration focuses on trying to land a Major League Soccer team with a different set of owners at a different downtown site.
The property was home to a baseball park from 1914 to 1917 and the Diamond Chain Co. manufacturing complex from 1917 to 2023, but before that, it was the site of portions of at least four former cemeteries for much of the 1800s.
The company revealed late Wednesday that archaeologists have discovered 87 remains in the excavation of a six-acre portion of the site in what it is considering the first phase of construction of project.
Earlier Wednesday, Chief Deputy Mayor Dan Parker said in a letter that a one-acre site on the property that the city is using for the construction of the Henry Street Bridge may contain up to 650 remains.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett told reporters Thursday that he would like to see the “sacred ground” become a park or a memorial. On Friday, city spokeswoman Aliya Wishner confirmed to IBJ that the city would like to buy the property from Keystone and explore the possibility of leaving the land relatively undeveloped.
“Yes, the City is serious about the potential to create a memorial park amenity on the former Diamond Chain site,” Wishner said in an email. “When considering the potential future profit of a development located on this hallowed ground, any assumptions or analysis would be incomplete without taking into account the significant anticipated costs necessary to appropriately and respectfully remove the individuals who were left behind more than a century ago and reinter them on a dignified site.”
Keystone, however, says it still intends to proceed with development of Eleven Park after moving remains to another cemetery.
In a statement, Keystone Group Senior Director of Communications Alexandra A. Miller reiterated that the company has committed to placing memorials at the Eleven Park development and at Mount Jackson Cemetery, the planned reinternment site for the remains it finds.
“We are eager to begin the process of gathering input from members of the community who share in our vision of lifting stories of the past with dignity on a respectful timeline and are focused on the history,” the statement said.
Hogsett had previously appeared supportive of the Eleven Park development, even attending the ceremonial groundbreaking last year. But in recent days, his administration has revealed that the archaeological work and the volume of remains at the former cemetery site might be more than many expected.
In response to a request for comment on the mayor’s decision to advocate for forgoing development of Keystone’s portion of the site, Wishner pointed to a line in Dan Parker’s May 22 letter to Keystone, in which the city expressed interest in purchasing the land.
“While it was known at the time of the Eleven Park proposal that the Diamond Chain site was once the location of several cemeteries, after more than a year of historical research conducted in partnership with the community, including the establishment of the Community Advisory Group dedicated to advising the City and Keystone about Greenlawn Cemetery, we now have a greater understanding of the site,” Parker wrote in an email.
The letter does not include a specific price for the 20-acre site, into which Keystone has told IBJ it has invested more than $26 million over the past two years. The city said it would pay an average of two appraisals for the site.
While supportive of leaving most of the site undeveloped, the administration still plans to go ahead with the Henry Street Bridge project, which would connect Elanco Animal Health’s upcoming headquarters to downtown.
Public Works Director Brandon Herget said the one-acre bridge worksite the city owns will likely cost $12 million to excavate. The administration estimates, in collaboration with contractors and historians in a community advisory group, that there are about 650 remains located just in the right of way for the bridge project.
Keystone said its archaeological costs on its part of the property are expected to be much lower, with the estimate on their end of “below seven figures.”
Herget said a consultant for the city, Crawford Murphy & Tilly, estimated there are roughly 650 skeletal remains and an additional 420 burial shafts within the right of way. Factored into the $12 million estimated excavation cost is the cost of human remains removal, exploration of burial shafts, analysis of human remains, reburial of human remains, curation and analysis of artifacts, transportation, cold storage, coffins for reinternment and labor costs.
Herget said that cost has been known to Hogsett administration leaders, district City-County councilor Kristin Jones and community members in the advisory group for about six months.
“The conversation in December was not necessarily about number of bodies and remains, it was about the budget for that,” Herget said. “And then, over the past few months ,we have been transparent within the community advisory group about those challenges, including—as they care deeply about the remains and history of the site—going deeper with them about the level of impact on remains and artifacts and such.”
The process of reinternment for the city is still far off. Aside from boring for the bridge that unearthed remains last year, it hasn’t broken ground on the portion of the site on the other side of the White River. The next phase, work on the bridge itself, will begin in July. The portion that would impact the cemetery is the connection of the bridge to Kentucky Avenue.
By Taylor Wooten, Indianapolis Business Journal
