Marian president bullish about renovation of former Indy hospital site
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe president of Marian University says the planned $137 million renovation of the former Veterans Administration hospital property in Indianapolis is coming at just the right time for the school.
The project, announced earlier this month, is part of the recently formed Riverside Education Innovation District and aims to turn the Larue D. Carter Memorial Hospital into a neighborhood hub offering educational programming and workforce resources.
“We had this facility in our neighborhood, worked with the state and others, and we’re going to drive…educational attainment, and really transform the area using a facility to house a lot of programs,” Dan Elsener said in an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.
Elsener said he believes the project will be transformational for the area, especially over the next five to 10 years.
“If you drive educational attainment, you drive investment, wages, household income, confidence in the neighborhood, stability in the neighborhood,” he said. “Right now [in] the neighborhood, we have issues. With this, in a partnership walking alongside of each other, big changes [are] coming.”
Marian said $38.5 million in public support has been committed to the project, including a $25 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. in Indianapolis, as well as $1 million from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Elsener said that kind of local commitment is key to creating a template for change in not just the neighborhood, but the whole city.
“The governor said to me, ‘Dan, this is what we need in our state,'” he said. “We need leaders, bringing people together and flipping a situation like maybe they’ve never seen before.”
The renovation will create multiple educational spaces for Marian and other partners, as well as a career and technical education space for Vincennes University within the primary building on the campus, IBJ reported.
Several additional buildings on the more than 22-acre site will be repurposed, while others are slated to be demolished.
“It’s a big project,” Elsener said. “It’ll get us up early, keep us up late, but we’re really excited about the difference a university can make in a community, as an anchor institution.”
A timeline for the project’s completion was not immediately known.