Small plans? Those aren’t what Hendricks Commercial Properties is considering for the future of Circle Centre Mall in downtown Indianapolis.
Late last year, Hendricks Commercial Properties purchased the Circle Centre Mall from the Circle Centre Development Company, a partnership of 17 business and corporate investors.
Hendricks has since developed a 10-year, $650 million plan to transform the downtown mall into an open-air, pedestrian-friendly mixed-used development. The new Circle Centre will include retail, restaurants, apartments and office space.
Lance Evinger, vice president of acquisitions and dispositions with Beloit, Wisconsin-based Hendricks Commercial Properties, said that closing on the sale of the Circle Centre Mall was a major milestone for his company.
“We had been working on this deal for about two years,” Evinger said. “It was the most complicated real estate deal that I have ever worked on. The property had a very unusual ownership structure. But we kept working on it to make it happen.”
Why was Hendricks so committed to landing this deal? Evinger said that the potential of the mall is immense.
First, it’s located in the dead center of downtown Indianapolis, close to the city’s convention center and several hotels. It’s where visitors, and residents, too, go to shop in downtown Indianapolis.
Evinger was also intrigued by the historic nature of the site.
“There is so much history in and around this site,” he said. “This site is so integral to the success of downtown Indianapolis. We are all history buffs here. Working on this project is such a honor.”
Circle Centre Mall first opened in 1995, and immediately attracted big crowds. Lately, the mall has struggled, thanks in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, several storefronts are empty.
One of the big changes that Hendricks is making is to replace the mall’s main concourse with an open-air street lined with shops, restaurants and apartments.
“We didn’t want to just re-tenant the mall,” Evinger said. “This isn’t about putting lipstick on a pig. If you want a world-class development there, that is what we want to do.”
Evinger said that Hendricks plans to transform the mall into a completely open-air space, with the development’s pedestrian-only promenade a highlight. The promenade will be wide and inviting, Evinger said. The focus will be on bringing restaurants and retailers that are new to the Indianapolis market.
The hope, too, is to bring experiential retail to the mall, Evinger said. This could mean bars that offer darts, bowling alleys, indoor mini-golf or other retail options that include the opportunity for socializing.
“We want to attract retailers that provide an experience,” Evinger said. “We are trying to bring in retailers that you don’t already see in downtown Indianapolis today.”
Evinger said that these sorts of mixed-use developments have proven successful, attracting a steady stream of both tenants and customers.
“These types of developments go back to what cities originally were all about,” he said. “They blend into the fabric of the city. They don’t stick out and look like a 1994-era mall. They look like they’ve been there for 100 years. They fit into the fabric of the neighborhood very organically.”
Mixed-use developments also provide a safety net to developers and owners. A mixed-use development might include residential, retail, office and hotel space. If one of those sectors is struggling, another might be thriving.
“It balances out,” Evinger said. “But at the same time, all the uses feed off each other.”
Evinger points to Hendricks’ existing Bottleworks District mixed-use development, also in Indianapolis. This mixed-use development is thriving today, thanks to its mix of different uses.
“The retail component in Bottleworks would be fine by itself. But you add the daytime population using the office space and the people eating at the restaurants and the clients staying at the hotel? It becomes a little ecosystem,” Evinger said.
Hendricks Commercial Properties expects the design phase of the Circle Centre transformation to take 12 to 18 months. It will then take another 12 to 18 months after this for the project’s first phase to reopen. Evinger said that Hendricks is targeting 2028 for the opening of the first phase, the south walk of what will be a two-block-long outdoor mall.
