Erika D. Smith

erika.smith@indystar.com

“No one comes into this neighborhood on accident.”

Judy Joyner said the words half-jokingly, but she wasn’t kidding. Around her, neighbors she’s known for decades chuckled knowingly and nodded in agreement.

Welcome to The Valley.

It’s an oasis perched in an industrial wasteland blocks from the shuttered General Motors stamping plant. Here, you’ll find historic houses, parks, schools and homeowners who care about their neighborhood. It’s close to Downtown, tucked between Harding Street and the White River, near both Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indianapolis Zoo. Yet few people even know it exists.

“It’s like we’re the armpit of the city,” said Rahnae Napoleon, who has lived on River Avenue in The Valley for more than 20 years. “We are treated like we don’t count. It’s hard.”

For months, residents of this forgotten neighborhood have been protesting Mayor Greg Ballard’s plan to turn the site of the crumbling GM plant into a colossal new Marion County criminal justice complex. With a price tag of up to $400 million, it would replace the Marion County Jail, Jail 2, Arrestee Processing Center, the juvenile complex on the Northeastside, more than 20 courts and dozens of offices for public officials.

It’s a massive project that needs to happen for financial and other reasons.

But it’s also a project that has the potential to finish off The Valley as a viable neighborhood. After all, who wants to live next to a jail? Who wants to deal with the traffic of thousands of employees, visitors and people in legal trouble navigating narrow streets designed for residential use?

If that weren’t bad enough, now there’s a new proposal: a large amphitheater.

A few days ago, Carmel developer REI Investments confirmed that it hopes to put a 15,000-seat concert venue and 5,000 parking spaces on half of the 102-acre GM site.

How big would such an amphitheater be? Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville can seat 18,000 on the lawn and another 6,000 under its canopy. Bankers Life Fieldhouse, in a concert configuration, seats about 15,000. And the Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn at White River State Park, so close to The Valley that residents can hear the music, seats about 7,000.

Residents on River Avenue are disgusted by the idea — and understandably so.

The last thing we need Downtown is another venue for concerts. Not when we already have the Lawn at White River State Park, Bankers Life, The Murat Theatre at Old National Centre and even the occasional show at Lucas Oil Stadium.

And we certainly don’t need a concert venue that would rival Klipsch on the edge of a neighborhood with homes, schools, parks and a handful of small businesses.

“Why is the city handling this so badly?” Jeff Gearhart, executive director of West Indianapolis Development Corp., asked in frustration. “This isn’t like the other economic development projects they’ve done. It’s in a neighborhood and they don’t seem to recognize it.”

Residents are beginning to lose hope. When I asked a half-dozen homeowners whether they thought the City-County Council would block the project, they let out a collective huff of derision.

They know that there’s a good chance The Valley will go the way of other, once close-knit neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that were destroyed by the construction of I-70 and I-65, General Motors, Indianapolis Power & Light Co.’s Harding Street Station, Eli Lilly and Co.’s West Morris Street complex, the RCA Dome and, most recently, Lucas OIl Stadium.

“Putting that stadium there pretty much made that neighborhood a glorified parking lot,” Napoleon said of houses that once stood where the Colts now play. “They killed it. That’s what we’re afraid will happen to us.”

In truth, though, The Valley has been dying quietly for decades.

Residents have fought hard to save it, buying vacant lots, sprucing up abandoned homes and working tirelessly to keep out the riffraff. But most people — including potential residents — don’t even know the neighborhood exists.

Decades ago, the area was saddled with a poor reputation. That’s because the neighborhood got its name thanks to the Great Flood of 1913. That year, a monstrous rain took out levees and bridges along the White River. Water rushed into the low-lying streets south of Oliver Avenue, collecting in what’s now known as The Valley up to 15 feet deep, trapping families in attics and on the roofs of their houses. Several people died.

“There was dead animals and human waste in people’s yards two feet deep,” said Lisa Gravesen, who bought a house in the neighborhood in 2011. “They got this reputation of being dirty and sick and dangerous, and it has never left.”

Over the years, The Valley has become more isolated with each new development. Today, only a couple of streets lead in and out of the neighborhood.

Joan Johnson, who has lived in The Valley for 63 years, can point to where her first house used to sit. The spot is now an underpass for I-70 on a street that dead-ends at IPL’s Harding Street Station.

“I used to live under the bridge,” she said, pointing from the wrap-around porch of a home and a neighborhood she doesn’t plan to leave without a fight.

Such is the price of progress.

Contact Star columnist Erika D. Smith at (317) 444-6424, erika.smith@indystar.com, on Twitter at @erika_d_smith or at www.facebook.com/ErikaDSmith.Journalist.