Neighborhood named federal 'Promise Zone'

The Near Eastside is one of eight communities designated Tuesday by the Obama administration as a federal "Promise Zone." That status gives high-poverty areas a leg up in the competitive world of federal grant applications, which are seen as crucial in their redevelopment.

Community leaders said the designation could prime the pump for grants on a number of fronts, such as cleaning up polluted industrial sites, giving businesses incentives to locate in low-income areas, reducing school suspensions, providing drug treatment and helping ex-felons re-enter society.

"Today's announcement is not about the federal government coming in to fix our problems," said James Taylor, CEO of the John H. Boner Community Center, which led the Near Eastside's effort for the Promise Zone designation. "It is about a new partner joining and aligning with our work."

For the purposes of the Promise Zone, the Near Eastside was defined roughly as being bounded on the west by I-65, on the east by Sherman Drive, on the north by 22nd Street and on the south by the railroad tracks just south of Washington Street. The lines were gerrymandered a bit to include another low-income area, Martindale-Brightwood, and a former Citizens Gas coke plant.

The announcement was made with considerable hoopla — with the Tech High School band, children from nearby day cares and more than 200 local residents — at the Chase Near Eastside Legacy Center, a fitness center that was part of the Super Bowl legacy project, which many here point to as a turning point for the area.

The Promise Zone, Taylor said, is another shot in the arm that reinforces that the Near Eastside isn't going away.

"This is an opportunity to again reinforce that this neighborhood is growing, that it is becoming thriving, that it is a good place for businesses to locate here and that people are saying, 'I'm betting on this community, and I believe in this community,' " he said.

Rather than a simple cash award, Tuesday's win for the Near Eastside is more layered.

Most immediately, five new AmeriCorps volunteers will move into the Near Eastside to focus primarily on educational efforts. The Near Eastside also will be teamed up with workers in federal agencies who will simply help local groups know what grants are available and how to apply. But the key is the grant preferences: During future grant competitions, applications from the Near Eastside will get additional points during the evaluations that could push them over the top.

Such grants are especially important when it comes to revitalizing old industrial sites, said Joe Bowling, co-director of the Englewood Community Development Corp., which has been focused on the East Washington Street corridor. Many have soil contamination that's costly to clean up, so costly they render some industrial sites too expensive to revive. Grant money for cleanups, he said, can make them viable again.

But, Bowling said, the Promise Zone designation is just the beginning of the work to get the cash pipeline flowing. "We have created an opportunity," he said. "This doesn't mean anything unless we capitalize on it."

Working toward that will be a broad partnership that includes Indianapolis Public Schools, the United Way of Central Indiana, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and, more central to the neighborhood, the Boner Center, the Englewood Community Development Corp., Westminster Ministries, Near East Area Renewal and the East 10th Street Civic Association.

Those kinds of partnerships are vital in the process of selecting Promise Zone communities, said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, who made Tuesday's announcement.

Spencer said more than 150 communities across the country applied to become a Promise Zone. The other winners Tuesday were St. Louis; Minneapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; Hartford, Conn.; Camden, N.J.; the Lowlands region of South Carolina; and the Pine Bluff Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Call Star reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter: @RbtKing.