Concerned About Kilroy's

Kilroy's is a popular bar and grill that started out in Bloomington and also has a location in downtown Indianapolis. It now wants to open up another one in the heart of Broad Ripple, but it's encountering a problem.

Zoning ordinances and regulations specify that, depending on the size of a business (and what the business does), it must provide a certain amount of on-site parking. The proposed location for Kilroy's, where the Cardinal Fitness Center currently is, wants to turn the parking lot by Cardinal Fitness into an outdoor dining area. According to zoning regulations, it needs over 100 spaces. Kilroy's is promising just over 30 spaces,and is seeking a waiver for the rest. I imagine most of those spaces will be occupied by employees, with maybe a select few being reserved for those with disability placards/plates and for take-out orders.

A waiver is very common in Broad Ripple. Many businesses have no parking for their customers, and they often have no control over the parking lots that are located nearby.

My concern about Kilroy's, however, comes from a different perspective.

I'm a white male in his 20s who does frequent the bars, mostly in Broad Ripple but sometimes elsewhere. I play pool with friends and sometimes enjoy a couple of drinks. But I wouldn't fit in in an establishment like Kilroy's.

Kilroy's is the type of place where drinking, and drinking to excess, is encouraged and practically required. In the wake of the Lauren Spierer disappearance, it was revealed that, over the last 9 months, the three Kilroy's locations in Bloomington were responsible for 50% of the underage drinking citations written up by the Indiana State Excise Police. I'm all for re-thinking our laws concerning alcohol and the legal age to drink and all that, but until that happens, businesses have an obligation to follow the law. And I don't think Kilroy's is the type of establishment that even tries. People with fake IDs know that if there's one place that'll let them in, it's Kilroy's.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in Broad Ripple, I also know that most residents don't particularly mind the massive amounts of bars in the area. But what they do mind is waking up Sunday morning only to find that their neighborhood is covered in trash and smashed beer bottles.

I don't know if I'm ready to advocate against Kilroy's new location, but I would like to warn my Broad Ripple friends to keep a careful watch. Remember, it's your community. Sure, all of Indianapolis (arguably, much of central Indiana) enjoys it, but you have to live there day in and day out. Give Kilroy's a chance to demonstrate they can run a responsible business. And if they can't demonstrate that, then hold their feet to the fire.

Wallace Releases First Campaign Commercial

Jim Wallace, a Fishers businessman, was the first candidate to announce that he's running for Governor of Indiana as a Republican. I really don't know much about him, so this video is probably one of the first impressions I've had of him.

Wallace has been all over Indiana in recent weeks attending county fairs, as you can see in the montage of clips in the video.

I like the video. It serves as a nice introduction, and he has a subtle nod to his Republican primary opponent, Representative Mike Pence, when he refers to Washington D.C. Running against a Congressional representative certainly makes it easier to run against "DC Politics" or something like that.

What do you all think?

Broad Ripple Parking Garage Suggestions

Over at Urban Indy, Curtis Ailes post some designs of the proposed Broad Ripple parking garage and asks us to forget about the politics that led to this deal and focus on the structure itself. Okay, I'll take a shot.

As indicated in the parking meter deal, a parking garage constructed in Broad Ripple will also implement permit parking in the neighborhoods in Broad Ripple. This will make it harder for non-residents to park in the neighborhoods and, effectively, move those cars into the parking garage. So a chunk of the parking spots aren't so much adding parking, but more taking it from one area (BR neighborhoods) and moving it to another (parking garage).

The intersection of Winthrop/Broad Ripple Avenue and College Avenue is heavily used, and can get congested even outside of peak hours. What plans are there so traffic will continue to flow smoothly, or at least not get any worse?

Is this location REALLY the best that could be done? And I don't mean within Broad Ripple, but outside of Broad Ripple as well. The Glendale area, particularly the lot just east of the mall, has a huge surplus of parking. Offering some type of shuttle service during peak hours, particularly in the evenings and during special events, would remove cars completely from Broad Ripple. And when they leave that east Glendale lot, they hit a road that isn't heavily used. And I think this type of idea could apply to a few parts of Glendale if, for some reason, that lot isn't available for use.

What type of retail is this mixed-use facility aiming for? My concern is that the rent will be quite high, and will lead to another bank or some type of chain like Walgreens, while more local businesses won't be able to afford the rent.

In addition to free bike rack parking, has anyone considered doing this (bike)Park-By-Phone shindig? It looks pretty nifty.

How about throwing a bone to the residents of Broad Ripple and provide a nice, sheltered IndyGo bus stop?

Ballard's Path to Victory? Hide Under the Desk!

Apparently taking a page from the victorious 2010 Charlie White campaign, Mayor Greg Ballard declined invitation to a Nora-area community group's forum for political candidates. Jon Easter of Indy Democrat reports that Ballard initially accepted the invitation, then withdrew it when it overlapped with a Mayor's Night Out event on the opening day of the Marion County Fair. The community group offered to put the forum on for a different day, but apparently that effort went nowhere.

I also highly recommend reviewing Easter's follow up post detailing the meeting and his thoughts. Of particular note was that Chris Bowen, the Libertarian candidate for Mayor, was highly critical of the water deal. Why do I find that interesting? Because Chris Spangle, the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Indiana, endorsed the deal on his blog and Edward Coleman, the sole Libertarian on the council, voted for the deal as well.

That's not to say it's a bad thing Bowen is expressing a different opinion. It's nice to have candidates who don't just blindly parrot the talking points, and it demonstrates how far the Libertarian Party has come in having a bigger tent. But still, interesting nonetheless.

(Also, I didn't really have anything worth posting today and so I decided to piggyback off of Jon Easter's two posts. Sorry, Jon).

Broad Ripple Parking Garage Still Stinks

I attended the monthly Broad Ripple Village Association meeting last night. And part of the agenda was a presentation and Q&A about the proposed parking garage.

Deputy Mayor Michael Huber, along with several contractors and a couple of the BRVA who worked on the deal, sat on the panel and answered questions from the audience. Multiple public record requests, including those from the Indianapolis Business Journal, have been denied. Specifically, the breakdown of how much this will cost and what it will be spent on. Huber's answer was that a lot of records are already up on the city's website, but the specifics of the parking garage are still being worked out.

My question compared the proposed $15 million garage to a recently built Ivy Tech mixed use parking garage that has more spaces and only cost $7 million. Huber said he wasn't familiar with Ivy Tech's, but his answer made it seem like Ivy Tech's was just a plain old, ugly looking parking garage, when that isn't the case. It has space on the first floor for retail and is a very nice facility.

While talking about the appearance of the garage, one of the contractors jokingly said "We don't want this to look like a Walgreens". He was referencing the widespread belief that the retail space will become a Walgreens since a CVS is just across the street from the proposed parking garage.

One of the questions commented on how badly a garage is needed and talked about having to deal with minor theft and vandalism and broken beer bottles after the Friday and Saturday night crowds leave town. This re-enforces my belief that the residents of Broad Ripple don't so much have a parking problem, but a problem with the people who park in Broad Ripple neighborhoods.

I also asked if there will be a City-County Council vote. Huber said there will be no vote.

I think this is a bit more than unilaterally deciding what street to pave. We're talking a $6.5 million dollars in public investment with no direct return on it except for a small police sub-station. While I don't have much faith in the council, at least it gives something resembling a check and balance. Council representatives should be demanding a vote on this and should be involved in the process rather than handing over their authority to the 25th floor.

I'm still not sold on the location either. During peak hours, which are basically 10pm-3am Friday and Saturday, we're talking about adding 300 cars that would previously have been spread out throughout various pay lots and the neighborhoods. This garage will be put at the southwest corner of College and Winthrop, an intersection that can easily get congested even during non-peak hours. What are the plans to deal with the additional cars?

Finally, one of the ideas kicked around at the meeting was to put bike lanes on Broad Ripple Avenue. It's a four lane road, but one lane on each side is for parking, and the remaining one lane on each road has gotten a bit tighter in some areas due to how the sidewalks were re-paved. So my question there is...where in the world is a bike lane going to go???

At best, this is a poorly negotiated deal that is dominated by what the contractor/Ballard donor wants. The city really needs to grow a backbone and realize that, without all this city work, these contractors would be stuck in the same crappy economy that the rest of us (who don't live off the public dole) live in.

Does the Indianapolis Star have editors anymore?

Bill Levin, a Libertarian candidate for City-County Council At-Large, was recently interviewed about the controversy surrounding The Sinking Ship (see my post here) by The Indianapolis Star. Earlier today, he posted this article to his Facebook page, noting that he wasn't mentioned in the story despite being interviewed. The story was later updated shortly after 12 noon today, complete with more quotes, including Levin's.

So is this standard practice at The Star? Publish a half-assed article and then expand it by several paragraphs later in the day? What happened to the days where a copy editor would catch oversights like this, or an editor to look over and notice that half of the people interviewed for the article aren't quoted?

Levin says that the article didn't appear in the print edition at all. I wouldn't know. I broke my Star habit about two years ago.

Broad Ripple Parking Garage Forum Tomorrow

Tuesday, July 19, the Broad Ripple Village Association is holding a forum to discuss the proposed Broad Ripple parking garage. It'll be at the Indianapolis Art Museum, 820 East 67th Street, at 7pm.

If you have an opinion (I sure do, and I'll go more in-depth in a post tomorrow), please show up and voice your thoughts.