A site with history

Headnote

Former uses could pose 'a bit of a sticky situation'for development

Experts are optimistic that the proposed redevelopment of the Diamond Chain property into a soccer stadium and commercial project will spur growth in housing and entertainment on downtown's southwest side.

But environmental and historical factors on what is now-and has been for more than 100 years-an industrial property also must be given consideration in the aggressive timeline set for development of Eleven Park.

The project by Indianapolis-based Keystone Corp. is expected to get underway as early as next spring, after Diamond Chain permanently closes, with work on the stadium portion of the project concluding in time for Indy Eleven's home opener in spring 2025. The project's costs are likely to be as much as $1 billion-including $250 million for the stadium itself, which is expected to be largely publicly funded.

"Certainly, it is a very aggressive timeline, without a doubt," said Larry Gigerich, executive managing director of Fishers-based site selection firm Ginovus

LLC. "You don't have ... perfect conditions here, when we talk about a site like this; they're likely going to have some environmental issues to address."

The uncertainty over the property's environmental status comes in part because the Diamond Chain land has a history as old as Indianapolis itself, albeit through only a handful of uses.

A portion of the site was the city's first burial grounds, starting in 1821, with that land being named Greenlawn Cemetery in 1860, according to records from the Indiana Historical Society and research by DeeDee Davis, a digital scholarship services specialist at IUPUI's Herron Art Library.

The cemetery, which evenutally encompassed most of the nearly 18-acre site, included an area set aside for Confederate soldiers who died at the Indianapolis prisoner of war camp, with a monument erected in 1909 to honor those soldiers. (It was later moved to Garfield Park.)

While most of the Greenlawn graves were moved to the Crown Hill and Holy Cross cemeteries by the early 1900s, not all of them made it out before the site was sold for redevelopment in 1914-first as a baseball stadium for the short-lived Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Federal League and three years later as the manufacturing facility that still stands.

The Confederate soldiers' remains...