A developer with plans for a $123 million third phase of the Proscenium complex in Carmel is seeking $19 million in tax-increment financing bonds for the project.

Carmel-based Novo Development Group LLC and the city of Carmel are looking to partner to construct Proscenium III at the northwest corner of the roundabout at South Rangeline Road and Executive Drive.

If built according to current plans, the development will feature 151 apartments, a 125-room boutique hotel, 63,000 square feet of office space, 15,000 square feet of retail space, 508 parking spaces and a public plaza.

“This is a project that is being driven by the need for office because we know that some office users are still moving into new headquarters,” Carmel Redevelopment Commission Director Henry Mestetsky told City Council members. “And, frankly, for every new office move that exists, they’re really picking between Bottleworks [in Indianapolis], Carmel and downtown Fishers when we need to make sure that they pick us.”

Proscenium III would be built on land west of Carmel City Hall currently occupied north-to-south by three single-family houses, a city-owned parking lot and an office building.

The project would be bounded by the Zeta Tau Alpha International headquarters (1036 S. Rangeline Road) to the north, South Rangeline Road to the east, Executive Drive to the south and Veterans Way to the west.

According to preliminary renderings, the boutique hotel would be built closest to the roundabout. Two office buildings would be built to the north along South Rangeline Road and an apartment building with a public plaza would be on the west side of the development along Veterans Way.

“We spent a lot of time on the architecture of the boutique hotel,” Novo Development Group founder Tony Birkla told councilors. Birkla Investment Group is the holding company for Novo Development Group.

Proscenium III would also have a 300-space parking garage, a 160-space parking garage and a 48-space surface parking lot. Eighty percent of the spaces would be open to the public, while the remaining spaces would be reserved for business and residential tenants.

“This is a project that is a primarily an office and luxury hotel project. This is not an apartments-first kind of project,” Mestetsky said. “This is what is desperately needed in the core, more walkable office, more walkable upscale hotel.”

The Carmel City Council’s Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee will next review Novo Development Group’s proposal to receive $19 million in developer-backed tax-increment financing bonds for the project. The developer would receive 95% of the TIF funds for the 25-year life of the bond. Indiana limits new TIF bonds to 25 years.

Carmel taxpayers would not be directly responsible for the costs associated with the developer-backed TIF financing if the council decides to approve it, Mestetsky said.

Some City Council members expressed concerns about the 95% to 5% split in the proposed TIF deal, while others wondered if there would be enough parking spaces available for tenants.

Carmel and Novo Development Group also partnered on the first two phases of the Proscenium complex.

Proscenium’s $85 million first phase was completed in 2021 on the northwest corner of South Rangeline Road and West Carmel Drive.

The project’s first elements—a 100,000-square-foot Agora at Proscenium office building and a 600-space subterranean parking garage—opened in summer 2020.

Its 196 luxury apartments (called Ver at Proscenium), 15,000-square-foot restaurant building and a 22-unit condominium building opened in 2021 to complete the first phase of development.

Proscenium also has one restaurant on site—101 Beer Kitchen—and a salon and spa, Lux Lab Hair + Body. Indiana’s first Wahlburgers eatery operated at Proscenium before it closed earlier this month. The 4,600-square-foot Proscenium tavern, which is expected to house an Italian steakhouse and a wine-coffee bar, received approval last year.

Construction is expected to be complete this year on Proscenium’s $18 million second phase at 1215 S. Rangeline Road.

The five-story Proscenium II will feature 48 rental units and seven penthouse condominiums, 15,000 square feet of ground-floor space for retail and office uses, and a 120-vehicle multilevel parking garage.

INDIANAPOLIS — A group of community members are focused on dealing with food insecurity. The Community Food Access Coalition has been a long time coming.

On Monday, the all-volunteer coalition laid out their recommendations for the city. They recommended four appointees to the Municipal Community Food Access Advisory Commission. They also recommended that the city invest in more urban farming and grass roots organization helping to fight food insecurity like Octavia’s Visionary Campus.

“The vision of this campus is to be able to grow food, create a hub, a community hub, where we build community wealth, an asset for the community,” Alex Sangsuwangul the Caretaker for Octavia’s Visionary Campus said. “Where we can grow food, have youth come here, education, youth leadership development.”

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The campus already has some young teens headed down the right path. They’ve done so by creating the Next Generation Farmers program.

“It backs building youth up,” Elijah Brinkley a Next Generations Farmer Participant said. “Building food knowledge, I feel like building sort of a knowledge with food and knowledge of how to grow and knowledge from other growers.”

RELATED | Food Hub helps connect Hoosiers to food resources

Food hub helps connect Hoosiers to food resources

Community Food Access Coalition hopes the city will invest in programs like next generation farmers.

“This isn’t a time for talking, this is a time for action,” Harrison Jacobo the Vice President of the Community Food Access Coalition said.

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It was four years ago the city passed Proposal 337, which allowed for the creation of the Community Food Access Coalition. It’s taken this long to get it off the ground. Now they hope the city will take their recommendations seriously.

“The coalition has control over funding from the city so OPHS will designate an allotment of money called a food fund to the coalition,” Jacobo said.

With the coalition established, the city says it is open to investing in some of the programs and that they look forward to learning about what grass roots organization might help create even more change when it comes to feeding Indianapolis residents in need.

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“We are always excited and eager to hear about new and potential partnerships, new opportunities, and I think that kind of circles back to this emerging you know coalition co-hort,” Alexis Weaver the Assistant director for the social determinants of health for OPHS said.

If the city chooses to invest in community grass roots organizations, it could go a long way.

“Having a little bit more funding we would be able to have more staffing, we could create more space for garden beds, create more time and energy for more folks to be involved,” Sangsuwangul said.

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The coalition’s next step will be working with the city to see how much funding they have dedicated to tackle food insecurity, where it is going and how they can help it be equitably distributed.

If you are interested in learning more about Octavia’s Visionary Campus they have volunteer opportunities. You can learn more by clicking here.

Just three years ago, an Indianapolis company that sells pharmacy-automation software had huge hopes for growth here.

Innovation Associates, which does business under the name iA, said it planned to expand its Indianapolis office from 20 to 420 by the end of 2023. Gov. Eric Holcomb and Mayor Joe Hogsett joined company executives in announcing the expansion plan.

But instead of growing, the company is now shrinking. Last week, the company quietly laid off 11 people in the Indy office and 60 people in other markets.

“Since entering the Indianapolis market, we have experienced great growth opportunities and an increase in workforce,” the company said in a statement to IBJ. “We’ve also experienced leadership changes, strategic shifts and additional external factors that affected and will continue to inform the evolution of iA. The number [of workforce growth] published in 2021 was a broad estimation given the business strategy and working environment at the time.”

The company declined to say how many people are working today at its Indianapolis office, located on the 15^th floor of the 8888 Keystone Crossing building. It did provide a figure for total workforce of 537, “across multiple headquarters offices, as well as many in remote settings across the U.S.”

According to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the company was eligible for up to $8 million in conditional tax credits if it employed 440 workers here by Dec. 31, 2023.

But according to the IEDC’s transparency portal, the company has claimed only $236,731, suggesting that iA has hired only a fraction of its stated goal. The portal does not show the number of workers employed by any particular company.

The company declined to make a senior leader available for an interview. The company had a change in leadership last year, when CEO Marvin Richardson retired and was succeeded by Tom Utech.

In his retirement announcement, Richardson said the industry has started a movement toward automation. “While the industry has yet to fully embrace technology at rates other industries have, it is poised to do so,” he said in written remarks in November.

In a column published in January in Chain Drug Review, Utech said the industry has faced unprecedented challenges for the past three years and have stepped up to meet them. “The dedication is admirable, yet the increasing demands for prescription fulfillment have brought to light the urgent need for change, for a Movement.”

Utech, who holds a doctorate in pharmacy from Creighton School of Pharmacy and Health Profession, said the industry needs to streamline through automation, undergo a digital transformation, and embrace innovative leadership and technology.

iA was founded in 1972 as Innovation Associates, which once designed manufacturing processes for a variety of industries, from the U.S. armed forces to personal computing, according to a profile on Utech in Creighton University’s alumni magazine.

iA sells software products to the retail, hospital, federal health care and mail-order pharmacy markets. It built its first fulfillment centers roughly a decade ago, the alumni magazine said.

“iA’s retail partners no longer fill the majority of their prescriptions on-site,” the magazine said. “The prescriptions are instead filled in a central fulfillment facility and brought to the brick-and-mortar store for the patient to pick up the following day.”

But the company did not want to discuss its business matters with IBJ, including workforce levels in Indianapolis.

“iA is declining any further comment on this matter,” the company told IBJ through an outside spokeswoman. The company did not return several phone calls to IBJ.