Will Higgins

Downtown Indianapolis is about to become a very different place.

Three new hotels. Six new apartment buildings. A cool new coffee shop. And, just maybe, a Play Scape, what Mayor Ballard calls a "backyard," that would "fuse art and creative placemaking with recreation" on the Downtown Canal's Northwest corner.

There's some new construction ahead, too — quite a bit of it.

Here's a rundown of what's in store:





The Hilton hotel chain will begin renovating the long-vacant Illinois Building, on the Southeast corner of Illinois and Market streets, to house a new hotel, Canopy by Hilton. (Just a few years ago, in 2007, the historic building was on Indiana Landmarks' annual "Ten Most Endangered" list.

Homes 2 Suites by Hilton: A second Hilton brand, Homes 2 Suites by Hilton, is coming to the long-vacant Consolidated Building, 115 N. Pennsylvania St. The building also will house nearly 100 apartments, to be called Penn Street Towers. It should be open by April.

The Canterbury Hotel later this week will reopen following a $13 million refit. It will become Le Meridien. Besides the remodeled guest rooms, it will have a new bar and restaurant.

Quill's Coffee, a small Louisville-based coffee shop chain, will open its first Indianapolis location at 9 on the Canal by the end of the year.

Engineering and landscape architecture plans are due Dec. 16 (see indyparksfoundation.org) for Play Scape, a small park that will "fuse art and creative placemaking with recreation" on the Downtown Canal's Northwest corner.

Nearly 500 apartments are under construction in the former Indianapolis Star building at 307 N. Pennsylvania St. Called Pulliam Square, it will open in May. The Tap, a restaurant and craft beer bar (the original location is in Bloomington), said it will open a location there.

Michigan and New York streets, the two east-west streets that slice through the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, are going to be changed from one-way to two-way. Work starts next year. Traffic will be slowed and the streets made safer for the college students walking about between classes. The thinking is the campus would feel more like a campus.

The long-defunct 1930s-era General Motors Stamping plant will spring to life next year. Dave Lucas, Indianapolis' old-school rock concert promoter (Deer Creek was his baby), plans to break ground in the first half of 2015 on a $40 million concert venue he will call The Stamp. Shows could begin as early as 2016.

Mentor and Muse, new apartment buildings with some commercial space, are under construction next to Artistry by Milhaus in the 400 block of East Market Street. The first of the 242 apartments are expected to be ready in the summer of 2015.

Angie's List in October said it would spend $40 million to buy the historic Ford manufacturing building and make it part of its campus, and also build a 1,000-space parking garage nearby at East Washington Street and Southeastern Avenue.

The celebrated New York-based architect Deborah Berke will design a major office building Downtown for Cummins Inc. The project — offices for 250 workers, ground-floor retail, parking garage, public green space — will be located on about 4 acres at the site once occupied by Market Square Arena.

Downtown's "backyard" is how Mayor Greg Ballard described it: It's far from a done deal, but there is a plan, as yet unfunded, to convert the cold, dull, open plaza on the south side of the City-County Building into a playground with a skating rink, foosball, pingpong and a lawn that you're allowed to walk on, even throw a Frisbee on.

Chef JJ's Backyard, the barbecue-centric Broad Ripple restaurant, will open a second location at 42 W. South St. in the spring. It's the site of the former Ugly Monkey bar just west of the Slippery Noodle blues bar.

At Circle Centre, two new-to-Indianapolis restaurants, Yard House and Dinosaur Bar-B-Q, are expected to occupy space on the street level at Maryland and Meridian streets.

Milhaus expects to complete Phase 2 of Circa in the summer of 2015. Circa, at the corner of College Avenue and Walnut Street, is a $31 million mixed-use project that will consist of 29 mostly two- and three-bedroom apartments and ground-floor commercial space.

Milhaus also is converting the former Shirley Engraving building, 460 Virginia Ave. in Fletcher Place, into 12,000 square feet of office and retail space, plus a couple of apartments and four custom townhomes. This will be the company's new headquarters.

Deylen Realty is building Slate, a $10 million, 68-unit, mixed-use apartment project at 501 Virginia Ave., in the very hot Fletcher Place/Holy Rosary neighborhood. It will include 9,900 square feet of street-level retail space. Deylen said it expects the project to be finished by late summer in 2015.

Also next summer Deylen hopes to break ground on a five-story apartment and retail project in Fountain Square at 1202 S. Shelby St. A parking lot is there now.

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.