In Defense Of Bricks

Sidewalk bricks in Lancaster, PA

I’ve been told by city engineers in past administrations that Noblesville’s legendary Nelsonville Star Bricks are a dangerously slippery walking surface and our other uneven brick pavers present trip hazards. “Anything more than a 1/4^th inch tripping hazard cannot be tolerated,” I’ve been told more often than I can count, “or the City will be sued into bankruptcy because of ADA (American’s With Disability Act) claims.”

 

Really?

 

Last winter I visited Brevard, North Carolina, a quaint little town of 7,600–a fraction of Noblesville’s population. Brevard is a progressive place. Stellar restaurants and coffee shops, breweries and boutiques line their historic downtown, as do brick sidewalks. These aren’t old neglected sidewalks, they’re well maintained and some are clearly newer.

 

We also spent some time in nearby Asheville, famous for its surrounding mountain forests, The Biltmore Estate, and its historic city center. Its population is a little larger than Noblesville’s. Ashville’s historic residential neighborhoods have lots of brick sidewalks made with shiny, salt glazed surfaces not unlike the Nelsonville Star Bricks familiar in Noblesville’s Old Town. There’s no evidence they’re taking them up, instead, they appear to be protecting and preserving them. In other parts of Ashville’s historic commercial areas they’re not only preserving brick sidewalks, but adding new ones.

Salt-glazed sidewalk bricks in Asheville, North Carolina

Are North Carolinians uncaring of handicap folks? Are they so rich they laugh at the thought of ADA lawsuits?

 

In July we went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for an annual business event. It’s another historic town with a population 10,000 fewer than Noblesville. And guess what? They’re not only preserving their historic sidewalk bricks, like Ashville they’ve installed new ones.

 

Savanna, Georgia sidewalk bricks

Spent two days in Savannah, Georgia last month, and yet again, this famous historic city, almost twice the size of Noblesville . . . yes, they’re preserving both typical pavers and Nelsonville salt-glazed bricks, and I watched a city crew installing brand new brick sidewalks in their historic, very pedestrian-focused downtown.

You know what I didn’t see in any of these towns? Not one single concrete sidewalk with faux stamped brick surfaces. They’re installing and preserving the real thing.

 

What do they know that Noblesville doesn’t know? Did their city engineers fail the college course on ADA mandates? 

 

Not likely. Asheville and Savannah clearly rely more on tourism than Noblesville to bouy their local economy, but that’s not true of Lancaster or Brevard. My guess is all four have a vision for their historic downtowns and they’ve committed to it. They’d jump at the stockpile of Star Bricks sitting at Noblesville’s Street Department and put them back in public spaces or sidewalks.

 

Noblesville could make the same commitment. It just requires the will to do it. 

 

Are concrete sidewalks really safer? In general, I think yes. But when newly laid, I think brick sidewalks are nearly as safe. The problems come from repeated freeze and thaw cycles that heave the ground (all the towns I mentioned except Savannah experience routine freeze and thaw cycles) and the heaving caused by growing tree roots. But as I walk Noblesville’s sidewalks (which I do a lot) I don’t see an obvious advantage for concrete over brick.

 

New brick sidewalk being laid in Savannah

When tree roots lift a brick sidewalk, they tend to create a gentle roll. When they heave a concrete sidewalk, they create an abrupt, extended, solid trip hazard. This callenges our beliefs about sidewalk safety.

 

Roundabout safety also challenges common logic . We assume they’re more dangerous than intersections with traffic lights, but that’s not true. Research shows that because of the rapid, yield-only movement in roundabouts, we enter them with greater vigilance. But at lighted intersections, it’s red or green, stop of go, and we trust it’s that simple. So when someone blows through a red light we’re more likely to get T-boned (which happened to me at 9^th and Conner a few years back), or a pedestrian killed because we mistakenly trust all people will stop for all red lights. Research shows stoplight intersections are more dangerous than roundabouts because vigilance trumps trust.

 

I think sidewalks work much the same way. We subconciously trust that concrete sidewalks are one, smooth, flat surface. But they’re not. We expect brick sidewalks to be uneven, and so we subconsciously increase vigilance.

 

I have renewed faith in Noblesville’s city leadership. It's younger, more energetic, and more willing to think out side old boxes. And not just elected officials, but also our truly first-class department heads and their staff. My hope is they’ll put an end to the pulling out of historic brick sidewalks and opt to repair them instead. If every other historic town I visit can do it, then a town as dynamic as ours can, too.

This heaved concrete sidewalk on N. 10th St. in Noblesville, making a 1.5" trip hazard, is not unusual, in fact, these are common. Yet, there's a very long stretch of smooth surface leading up to it, just enough to fool you into thinking there's nothing to trip over.

Nobody Wants To Work?

We’re all frustrated with short-staffed stores and restaurants and waves of supply chain shortages. From friends to Facebook posts to cable news, the relentless bleat drones on, “Nobody wants to work. They all want to sit at home and collect unemployment.”

I’ve no doubt such people exist, but they’re a very minor cause of our labor shortage.

 

Let’s start with a reminder: there was already a shortage of workers before Covid.

 

Many women delayed returning to work for quite good reasons. It sad but true that women earn less than men. So, when someone in a family needed to stay home to tend to young children whose school had closed and gone online, it was often a woman. 

 

And those short-staffed kid’s summer camps and vacation locations we saw this year? In previous years tens of thousands of foreign students came to America as temporary guest workers during their summer holiday. None could come the past two years.

 

But I hear no recognition of this, only the self-righteous cry, “Nobody wants to work.”

 

There is one big group not returning to work for convoluted reasons.

 

Thanks to a steady dose of misinformation, some people are afraid to get the vaccine. Yet, as our country approaches three quarters of a million people dead from Covid and hospital ICUs overloaded with the infected, its dangers are hard to ignore. So there’s a class of worker needlessly afraid of the vaccine, but also afraid to go back to their day care job, filled with sneezing, coughing, drooling babies and toddlers who can’t yet be vaccinated, or their restaurant job with unmasked patrons and their germy drinking glasses and eating utensils. And as a result, even if they wanted to go back to work, day care costs have risen 50% since Covid arrived. So your day care bill of $200 a week before Covid is now $300 a week. 

 

Some people can’t afford to go back to work.

Let’s acknowledge another gruesome reality: 700,000+ Americans have died from Covid. Hundreds of thousands of them had jobs.

And how about former president Trump’s attitude toward immigrants and guest workers in the three years leading up to Covid? He wasn’t just hyper aggressive about turning back illegals, he also dramatically reduced LEGAL immigration.

 

I get more than a little confounded that most of this, “Nobody wants to work,” is coming from conservative folks, the ones who so frequently remind the world they’re Christians, followers of Jesus. So WWJD? Barking ill-informed, harsh condemnations at low-income workers likely wouldn’t make His list, considering His teachings urged us to help those with less. 

 

And if we plotted a map of America with anti-vaccine hotspots, where hospital ICUs are packed to the gills with the infected and unvaxed and laid it atop another map showing which areas voted Trump and which voted Biden, looking for correlation, we find that Trumpers are overwhelmingly the ones slowing our return to full employment. Their political movement demands no obstacles to a completely opened economy, yet their wallowing in vaccine misinformation is the single biggest obstacle. They also demand schools open with no mask or vaccine mandates, making yet another class of worker-parent whose child may have compromised health conditions consider staying home with their child to protect them from the anti-maskers’ and anti-vaxers’ potentially infected children.

 

Holding such contradictory points of view and then insisting, “Nobody wants to work,” when folks don’t meet your impossible expectations layers idiocy on top of an international pandemic. 

What’s more, Covid forced many folks into soul-searching about how they want to live and work. Young Americans are sick of stressful, low wage jobs at companies that pay mega millions to their CEOs and boards of directors, a seeming re-creation of the Victorian-era, Gilded Age income model. Labor statistics show those young workers put in more hours, get fewer benefits and have less buying power than their parent’s generation did at the same age. In fact, 4.3 million people quit their jobs in August, mostly in food service, hotels, and schools.

There’s a smug, self-congratulatory sound to the belligerent claim, “Nobody wants to work.” The accuser is inferring that they, themselves are blameless for labor shortages. Well, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. If you’re indifferent to those working stressful, low-income jobs, if you’re spreading Covid and vaccine misinformation, if you’re unvaccinated, and if you’re happy with less legal immigration, you’re as much a part of the problem as someone who, “Doesn’t want to work.”

1st World Luxuries In The Time Of Covid

Around a campfire spit with his 3^rd world host, Anthony Bourdain nibbled on freshly roasted local beast. His host asked, “I hear in America some people don’t eat meat.” With greasy fingers, Bourdain chewed another piece off the bone and grunted, “Yeah, it’s a first world luxury.”

I’ve thought about Bourdain’s comment while folks refuse Covid vaccinations. What a luxury, to be so safe and comfortable we have the emotional energy to get suspicious about nourishing sustenance and life-saving medicines, even imagining some are, in fact, poisons.

Follow the cartoonist on Twitter @BillBramHall

 It’s a curious thing that the safer people are, the more petty dangers hover like a mirage in the road ahead.

 

And the tricks the media use to keep us tuned in amplify the curse.

 

A friend who once anchored local news jokingly told me, “If it bleeds, it leads.” And so they started each newscast with a menacing story, even if it had been a great day in the news; malfunctioning child car seats, suntan lotion destroying barrier reefs, unruly airline passengers, dangerous local intersections. There’s something to fear around every corner. Film at 11:00!

 

During President Obama’s 2^nd term, law enforcement research showed violent crime was at a near 30 year low in the U.S. At this precise time a FOX News-watching neighbor lamented to me that crime was out of control in America, that our cities and towns were cesspools of violence.

 

How could it be that that he felt most threatened in one of the safest times of his life? Because someone was feeding him fear everyday. All the fear mongering could actually be cherry-picked true stories that still added up to a misinformed mindset.

 

I’m one of those tiresome people who believe scientists who have actual credentials and run actual studies, who document their work and expose it to peer review. In that world, 90+% of scientist and doctors, people who’ve spent their entire lives researching pathogens and treating patients, it’s settled science that wearing masks dramatically protects against getting or transmitting Covid. It’s also settled science that Covid vaccines dramatically protect against getting Covid or having a dangerous reaction to it.

 

But at a recent school board meeting in Noblesville, when Dr. Jaime Stelzer, vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics spoke to support that science, she was verbally attacked by anti-mask parents in the audience. Police had to escorted her to her car.

 

How fortunate we have the scientific and medical infrastructure enjoyed in America, one with a stellar record of success. The vast majority of other nations in the world can only dream of it. Yet, significant numbers of Americans have come to believe this infrastructure is lying and the real truth can be found elsewhere.

 

And so, as 3^rd World folks planet-wide beg for Covid vaccines, folks in the lap of luxury actually conjure a threat and tens of thousands of doses near their expiration date in red states with low vaccination rates.

 

Which raises the question: why is it that low vaccination states tend to be states that voted for Trump? Why is it those are the very states right now where ICU beds are near full. Next week, will people die in hallways and parking lots, waiting for a ventilator, or simpler yet, staff that can tend to them? 

 

And in a cruel twist of fate, this past week a 5th conservative talk show host, Bob Enyart of Denver, who spread misinformation about Covid and vaccines, died of Covid. This self-induced thinning of the heard will go down in history. 

 

That sounds way scarier than getting a vaccine shot. Nuttier still, many “Pro-life” folks, despite 630,000 Covid deaths and counting, refuse to get the vaccine, allowing it to mutate and become deadlier. Perhaps they’re more “Pro-birth” than “Pro-life.”

 

Some folks need a metaphorical gun to their heads before they can muster the intellectual energy to set aside emotion enough to know what to fear. 

 

Heard a doctor interviewed last week who said 9 out 10 patients in his ICU are unvaccinated and nearly every one is remorseful, begging for the vaccine. Facing a true threat has a funny way of  focusing attention on reality. But when you’re comfortable and disconnected from immediate threat you have the luxury of carefree, careless emotional, even political principles, as perhaps many of those 9 out of 10 had before they got sick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New and Improved Hamilton County Driver's Manual

STOP . . . or don't

New to Hamilton County or new to driving? Throw away that Indiana Driver’s Manual and learn to drive like a local. What follows is the Hamilton County Driver’s Manual. And it’s been revised. This new version will help you calculate your “Kill Threshold.”

Stop Signs: Here, stop signs don’t really mean, “STOP,” so much as they mean, ”Slow Down a Little” (but that’s too many words to put on a sign). This is well exemplified by the 4-way stop at 10^th and Hannibal Streets in Noblesville. When the car in front of you takes its turn to pass through the intersection, ease through with them as if you’re tethered together. True, if each car made a complete stop, children could safely cross the street and cars trying to cross at the next intersection might actually be able to do so, but the Hamilton County Golden Traffic Rule is, “Do unto others anything necessary to get where you’re going faster.” 

 Speed Limits: In Hamilton County, the posted speed limit is not the top threshold as is the case in other parts of the country, but the slowest you’re allowed to go. Ten to twenty miles an hour over the posted limit is just fine, especially in neighborhoods. The people taking a walk and the children riding their bikes or playing basketball in cul-de-sacs really won’t mind your speeding. However dangerous or irritating you’re making their lives, they understand how important it is that you shave five or ten seconds off your drive.

"Chase 'em out, chase 'em out, chase 'em WAY out!"

Pedestrians/Crosswalks:  Here in our corner of Hoosierland, we see crosswalks as needless government regulation. Fact is, some people are too cheap to exercise in health clubs–they actually get out and walk around. Here’s what to do: As moms with strollers, County employees on the courthouse square, and Monon Trail users are exercising their “supposed” right to safely cross the street, ease your car menacingly close to them. Once they’re just inches out of your way, slam on the accelerator and roar past. This may sound extreme to bleeding-heart newcomers, but it reminds pedestrians that "Might Makes Right." Likewise, if you’re in a mall parking lot or at a pedestrian crossing and it’s raining or bitterly cold, do not give pedestrians the right of way out of some mistaken notion of kindness. No matter that you’re warm and dry and they’re not. Cars come first here. Always.

 

ALWAYS! Oh, and BTW, block intersections and crosswalks anytime you want. Totally fine. 

When stopped at a red light, it's perfectly
fine to do so in the middle of the crosswalk.

Bicycle Safety: Treat cyclists the same way you’d treat pedestrians. Hurry past them going way too fast and way too close. Cyclists should know they’re a nuisance because sometimes they slow down drivers a few seconds.

 

Car Size: We prefer the biggest cars possible. Small cars are for weak liberals. Never mind that we live in one of the flattest places on earth, have not one single gravel road in the county, or that we have some of the best and safest roads in the nation. Bigger is always better, no matter what. Commuting solo to downtown Indy in a Suburban, extended cab truck or other urban assault vehicle? Of course you are! We all are. And if it costs $80 bucks to fill your tank, that’s not your fault. Just blame Biden. (Around here we blame everything on him.)

Yellow Lights: The yellow light transition from green to red is actually an extension of green. Slam on the accelerator and blow through that sucker.

 

Turning Left: Hamilton County is so conservative we’ve made turning left as hard as possible. But if you insist on turning left, pack a sack lunch and bring your meds–you’re gonna be there awhile. (And FYI, nobody’s gonna wave you ahead. *Refer back to our Golden Traffic Rule)

 

Roundabouts: We have roundabouts here in Hamilton County. If you’re of at least average intelligence and prefer to move forward rather than sit needlessly at red lights, you’ll do fine. If you’re of below average intelligence and enjoy sitting at red lights, you’ll find these irritating, and possibly even their circular shape, confusing. Forewarning: If you hate daylight saving time and spicy food, you belong here and therefore will also hate roundabouts.

These signs can be taken literally elsewhere
in America, but here they translate in the
local language as, "blah, blah, blah."

Noise Pollution:  Hamilton County residents put “noise pollution” in the same category as global warming, evolution, and Obama’s citizenship: Things that don’t exist. We love loud car sound systems and loud motorcycles. Even better–a loud motorcycle WITH a load sound system. That’s why we don’t enforce our noise ordinances. Fellas, the louder your sound system and/or engine, the more men admire you and the more ladies are attracted to you. Like you, they see the noise as a symbol of your masculinity. 

 

Calculate Your Kill Threshold: How much exasperating driving delay would you accept before losing your shit and endangering another person’s life? For example, let’s say you come upon a cyclist taking up half a lane and to wait for a safe spot to pass would add 10 seconds to your commute to the liquor store, so you angrily zoom around them, your side mirror just inches from their handle bars. Your Kill Threshold is 10 seconds. If waiting for a pedestrian to comfortably clear the intersection would slow you down 3 seconds, so you race past, your tires just inches from their heels, then your Kill Threshold is 3 seconds. The pedestrians will understand you’re in a hurry to get to that next red light. Sitting at a red light myself recently, I saw my neighbor, a young mother of two, waiting to cross the street. When the light turned green a motorist in the oncoming left turn lane did not wait his turn, but slammed on his accelerator, rocketing across the path of oncoming cars who had the actual right-of-way and through the intersection my neighbor had just entered, almost hitting her. That man’s Kill Threshold was zero. There was no period of time he’d wait before endangering another person’s life. That there’s an overachiever! 

In the 24 hours before posting this blog, The Contrarian
actually came upon 2 such car accidents.

What’s your Kill Threshold?

 

If there’s a traffic situation not covered here, refer back to the Hamilton County Golden Traffic Rule*.

 

What Could Noblesville Learn From Lancaster, PA?

Lancaster's war memorial, a Federal-style 

visitor's center, and Romanesque Central Market.

When I travel to dynamic towns, I keep my eye out for what makes them dynamic. What choices have these communities made that set them apart? What lessons could Noblesville learn?

For over 30 years I’ve chaired boards, sat on committees, restored homes, argued at board of zoning appeals and plan commission meetings, written hundreds of newspaper columns and blog posts agitating for a more exciting town, and along the way sold many hundreds of houses and businesses in my day job as a Realtor. Call me a “land-use nerd."

Because Lancaster, PA is so similar in population to Noblesville (at 59,000 people it’s about 5,000 less than us), and because it leans heavily on its historic past, as we do, it’s useful to see what works for them.

 

Lancaster is old–their oldest architecture a 100 years older than ours. And though slightly lesser in population today, it was a much bigger town in 1890 than Noblesville was. So their downtown commercial district is bigger, its historic buildings taller, its historic neighborhoods much bigger, it’s architecture more dramatic, and it’s urban sprawl a smaller percentage of the whole than ours. While we’re a suburban satellite town to a state capital , they’re just far enough away from Baltimore and Pittsburg they have to be a little hub of their own.

Early 1800s architecture in Lancaster, PA

My location as I write this offers an initial lesson. Lancaster has a Marriott Hotel and a modest convention center in the very heart of their downtown (out its front door is the view above) This brings convention business and tourists who feed an impressive expanse of shops and restaurants. That’s not beyond Noblesville’s ability. Gossip in development circles a couple years back said a boutique hotel was looking to locate in our downtown and there are a number of prime undeveloped locations on either side of White River to put one. The possibility of a hotel with an events center would be a game changer for the urban environment unfolding right now in Noblesville.  And with Grand Park in Westfield, Ruoff (Deer Creek) Music Center, Morse Reservoir, and White River, our own historic districts for wandering, there are plenty of reasons for regional tourists to spend a weekend in Noblesville.

For context, let’s restate reality: 18 months from now, thanks to large high-rise apartment buildings being built in downtown Noblesville, there will be at least 500 hundred more people living in our urban core, a number I believe could quadruple in the next 4 years as new projects are announced. Add to that some 60,000 square feet of office and retail space. Forget about what downtown Noblesville WAS. I’m thinking about what it WILL BE.

 

Dinner atop a 4 story historic building with a view of the city.

Lancaster is abuzz on Saturdays. They have the best produce market I’ve ever seen in a smaller city. You walk the stalls of a back-alley Victorian Romanesque warehouse choosing wares from Amish, West African, Polish, and Italian booths. Cured meats, donuts (the Long John is serious business here), gourmet coffee, butchers, cheese makers, pasta makers, pastries, breads . . . it’s all here. The surrounding alley’s have been bricked and tables and chairs abound where locals, and on the weekends, tourists relax here and also further out amid blocks of brunch spots and coffee shops. Outdoor restaurant and bar seating fills up first, so much so, some eateries who don’t have ground level room for outdoor spaces have created rooftop dining. There are 4 or 5 of these and it’s fabulous to dine overlooking the city. Think I’ve been to all but one of them.

Late Friday afternoon a corn hold game

begins on a rooftop bar as the parking 

garages start to fill up

There’s been some conflict in downtown Noblesville about creating expanded outdoor dining. The City wanted to do it by reducing street parking and widening sidewalks, but merchants pushed back. With 4 separate parking garages planned or underway within a couple blocks of the courthouse, parking in our downtown WILL change. In Lancaster folks can either parallel park on the narrow streets, pay in the hard-to-find surface lots, or park in multi-story garages–which they do. People keep telling me Noblesville folk won’t park in garages, but I can’t figure out what defect we have that prevents us from acting as reasonable people act in urban environments everywhere else I travel in American. Everywhere!

And those brick sidewalks? I’ve been told by past Noblesville city engineers that brick sidewalks just have to go, that they’re too dangerous and tend not to meet ADA mandates. Well please! Tell me why every other dynamic historic town I visit, like Lancaster, makes it work? Are they smarter or more hard working than us? Do they care less about the handicap? Of course not.

 

Our Hoosier defect might be nothing more than a curmudgeonly lack of vision. Noblesville’s Street Department has a massive stockpile of star bricks removed from sidewalks. Put ‘em back in the damn sidewalks and quit thinking up reasons why it won’t work!

Sidewalk bricks abound in Lancaster, but they 

don't have the beautiful star bricks we have.

Like Noblesville, Lancaster protects its historic resources (like those brick sidewalks). They appear to understand that it’s their trump card. Noblesville needs to double down on this and perhaps go as far as declaring a moratorium on demolition of pre-1970s buildings, (don’t quibble with my cutoff date. Mid-Century houses are all the rage), and taking action to encourage restoration of neglected older properties. There needs to be a review and protection process. Something more than homeowner whim.

Lancaster is not all rosy and clean. Walking a few blocks west of the bustling downtown, I smiled at an elderly shirtless man smoking in the doorway of an ancient, crumbling house on a street where fast food trash gathered against a stairway and weeds sprouted from cracks in the sidewalk. Here, blocks of low income housing with peeling paint and crooked gutters are found, made up of 200-year-old simple Georgian and Federal-style row houses bending this way and that along streets following colonial-era mule paths. Working your way clockwise north, surrounding streets reveal big ambitions not entirely realized. There are a couple blocks of art galleries and record stores, a couple more streets of wonderful restaurants, but here and there, empty buildings with “For Lease” signs. Further on the axis to the east you return to envious environs, tree-lined streets with stunning Victorian homes–Queen Anne, Italianate, and French Second Empire, all beautifully restored.

 

Like Noblesville, Lancaster has iconic American

streetscapes filled with shops and restaurants.

Low-income housing remains a challenge for Noblesville, too. Thankfully, we don’t have large neglected zones meant to house those struggling financially, but we do need more affordable housing and as our downtown gentrifies, the challenge will mount. Rather than ranting at Help Wanted signs, “People don’t want to work!” perhaps consider that the folks qualified to take that job can’t afford to live in our town. Lancaster and Noblesville, each in their own way struggle with low-income housing, as our entire nation does.

I am proud to be a Hoosier, but just as I can recognize my personal faults, I recognize those of the place I come from. I worry the Hoosier mind set is our biggest enemy in city building. We’re so used to the old stereotype of Indiana being a backwater, fly-over state, do we carry the cancerous germ of belief that while we’ll vacation in great places, our own towns can’t compete?

 

Noblesville is poised for greatness, but it will take hard choices and enlightened value judgments to get there, just like those made here in Lancaster, PA.

 

 

Downtown Noblesville At A Crossroads

We can wish for powerful, transformative forces to enter our lives, but once they come, they might just take over and lead us somewhere we never wanted to go. We’ve got to invite them on our terms. That dilemma is where downtown Noblesville finds itself today.

The wave of redevelopment hitting downtown is, on it’s face, a good thing. Most towns across the Midwest would kill for it. But it could also threaten our historic architecture and the very historic identity that defines our community. Can we protect our idyllic, historic commercial and residential architecture amid a swirl of investor millions and newly arriving, deep pocketed residential buyers who may have little interest in our town’s history?

 

Hamilton County’s other growing cities have readily sacrificed their old downtowns in various ways amid transformative, developmental makeovers. Towns like Carmel and Cicero have allowed linear development to sprawl down their main drags, filling former homes with businesses. Carmel has also allowed the relentless demolition of existing homes in established neighborhoods for new, larger, more lavish replacements. Fishers has allowed widespread demolition and redevelopment to utterly obliterate and remake its downtown. And Westfield has gone all-in, not only allowing both linear development down State Road 32 and demolition of key pieces of its history, but also giving over established residential neighborhoods to commercial redevelopment. 

 

You could start thinking living in an older, traditional neighborhood is illegitimate–only disconnected neighborhoods with curvy streets and matching mailboxes are safe.

 

But not in Noblesville. All the pressures neighboring towns gave into are breathing down our necks, but we’ve held off most of it, so far.

Hamilton County government has just broken ground on a 5-story parking garage located at the
brackish northern border between commercial and residential Old Town. It will face commercial
downtown and has residential homes immediately at its back and east sides.

 

Noblesville has by-and-large protected its historic neighborhoods. For decades attempts to rezone homes for commercial use along Old Town’s main arteries have been rebuffed by residents and the City. There are actually fewer commercial uses of buildings in residential Old Town now than thirty years ago, and that’s not just due to activism and regulation. It’s also an organic trend, driven by the market–people wanting to live in those structures. And in its most recent master plan, the City drew a firm zoning line down the north/south alley east of 10^th Street from Wayne Street to Seminary Park, making it clear that our booming commercial downtown could not bleed east into our reborn residential neighborhoods. 

Yes, Noblesville has chosen a different path than its neighbors. 

 

But with the construction of high-dollar apartment buildings on old parking lots and the demolitions of a couple small homes in rough condition to make way for newer, bigger homes, pressure is quietly mounting and city leaders will soon be forced to make hard decisions about Noblesville's future identity.

The $48 million East Bank development at White River and Conner St. will break ground later this 

year and hold 219 apartment, 295 parking spaces and 5,000 sq. ft. of retail. Immediately at its back 

is a residential neighborhood with many homes in need of renovation.

In my last blog post I detailed the projects underway in commercial Old Town. They’re pushing property values up. Once those projects are complete and the urban foot traffic they promise hits the streets, filling restaurants and retails shops, I’d expect those values to climb even further, along with retail rent. That could lure chains not afraid of historic districts, like Starbucks and regional restaurant groups.

 

Meanwhile, in adjoining residential Old Town, property values have also risen rapidly as more homes are restored and buyers pursue an urban lifestyle–a walkable/bikable life near parks, summer festivals, concerts, restaurants and shops. As a result, in a couple recent incidents, small, poorly maintained homes have been demolished and replaced by new, bigger homes. In both cases, the new homes are an improvement, but I fear someday we'll see routine demolition of smaller, historic homes to make way for big modern homes, simply because the lot location is so coveted. 

 

1437 Clinton before demolition.

Noblesville will have to fight this tooth and nail, making it clear that this is not Carmel. Carmel is fine–good for Carmel and what they want to do. But we have a different identity that’s worth protecting.

Why not tear down a few eyesore houses here and there? In my 3 decades fighting for historic preservation I recall a time when demolitions were far more common. Over those years I could count perhaps 25 historic properties torn down because they were an eyesore and someone had a “good idea" for using the land better. But when your  town’s identity is built upon authentic historic charm, it’s a lesson in how 25 little “good ideas” add up to one big bad idea. Remember that most of the beautifully restored historic buildings in Old Town were eyesores at some point in the past 60 years. If they’d all been torn down when they were an eyesore, we’d be . . . well, Fishers. 

 

1437 Clinton today with a home nearly 4

times the square footage of the previous

home nearing completion.

No offense intended. That's fine for Fishers. But let's

be Noblesville. We have an authentic identity.

In my day-to-day life as a Realtor, I’ve recently heard both commercial and residential owners of historic properties speculate about tearing down their 

buildings and putting up something more lucrative. The City’s answer needs to be an emphatic, “NO.” 

 

These transformative redevelopmental forces need to come on our terms, or they need not come at all.

It’s The End of Downtown Noblesville As We Know It (and I feel fine)

(Apologies to R.E.M. for co-opting their song title.)

 

Two years from now the feel and functionality, even the center of gravity of downtown Noblesville will be transformed. It will become an intensely urban environment with dramatically more pedestrians and cars. It’s already underway, and will unfold fast enough to make your head swim.

 

And I feel fine. 

 

I want an exciting, vibrant downtown. I’ve been waiting decades for housing, restaurants and shops to be built in the surface parking lots–the asphalt deserts that ring our city center. And it’s finally happening.

The Levinson Building at 9^th and Maple (pictured above) is nearly complete: 85 apartments, 337 parking spaces, and a family-friendly restaurant with a broad street-side dining space. Before the end of the year some 140 people and 120 cars will call this single half block parcel just a half block from the courthouse, home. The builder finds half the tenants of their Indiana buildings are at or near retirement–an active population with more disposable income. That’s good for downtown shops and restaurants.

By the approaching winter, the Lofts On Tenth (pictured above) could be occupied. Currently under construction along 10^th, between Clinton and Wayne streets, it replaces a long-term eyesore with an attractive building. It will house 7 small retail spots and 23 apartments. Let’s estimate another 45 people and 40 cars.

 

County Parking Garage: Hamilton County is about to break ground on a new 5-story parking garage along Clinton St., between 8^th and 9^th streets. They'll will move all employee parking from the surface lot at Conner and White River to the new garage. This long overdue project is good, but a mixed bag. They only need 4 stories today, which leaves 1 story of additional parking for downtown during the day (hopefully), and presumably the entire building on evenings and weekends. But the relatively easier access county employees once had down Hwy 19, St. Rd. 32, and 8^th to their parking is gone and now they’ll have to filter through commercial and residential Old Town to get to and from parking. 

Construction begins this summer on East Bank (pictured above), a 4-story building on the old County parking lot where White River meets Conner St. and includes the demolition of the McMillan Auto Care. Its 219 apartments will overlook the river, with a 295 car garage and 5,000 square feet of retail centered at 6^th & Conner. Let’s expect approximately 350 more residents using most of the 295 parking spaces. Completion is expected spring of 2023.

Though it’s across the river, consider the Village of Federal Hill (pictured above): 163 apartment units, a 430 space parking garage, and a staggering 30,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. This and the city’s plan to make west Logan a more bikeable/walking artery reaching west to the staggering Nexus development (pictured below) at the old Marsh plaza, with almost 300 living units and another 36,000 sq. ft. of commercial space (and a bike share facility) will functionally drag the center of downtown from the courthouse square to the river. 

Let’s do the math for spring of 2023. There will be approximately 600 more people living within about 2 blocks of the courthouse. They’ll be shopping, eating, living, going to downtown parks, art shows and music events, and having friends and family visiting them. Imagine sharing the sidewalks, crosswalks, restaurants and Farmer’s Market with that many more people. Also consider that they’ll also have at least 550 cars located in the same radius, coming and going from 3 parking garages. Imagine sharing the streets with them. As I said, downtown will become a far more intense urban environment. 

 

And that math I estimated doesn’t include the Nexus development further west, the biggest development of all.

 

But that’s not the end of it.

 

I’m a Realtor who sells commercial property in this zone. Without divulging private conversations or anyone’s personal business, trust me that every single remaining parking lot or parcel of ill-used land you see downtown or immediately west of the river has a landowner and/or a deep-pocketed developer dreaming and scheming about it, right now! In 4 years, barring a recession, the numbers could be double what I’ve just laid out.

 

And I feel fine. Not because I’m a realtor, but because I’ve lived here with an under-performing downtown for 3 decades. Yes, it gets better all the time, but still a shadow of what it could be. I want more cool restaurants, distilleries, shops and special events to enjoy. That potential is unfolding.

For more info on each project and a maps showing locations, follow this link the City of Noblesville's website: Noblesville Projects