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| About Fall
Creek Place |
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Fall Creek Place is a community of hard-working families and well-acquainted
neighbors, sharing in the dream of homeownership, and enjoying the active and
diverse surroundings that come with downtown living. Located only two miles
north of the heart of Downtown Indianapolis, Fall Creek Place offers a unique
blend of housing types over a wide range of prices.
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As recently as 2000, the neighborhood was known as "Dodge City"
because of its high crime rate. While many families continued to
live in the area, vast portions of the neighborhood were comprised of
vacant lots and boarded-up homes--the result of decades of
disinvestment. In July of 2001, with help from a $4 million Home
Ownership Zone grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Fall Creek Place development began. Vacant lots,
abandoned homes and dilapidated homes were acquired, new streets,
sidewalks, lighting, utilities, and trees were installed, and special
financing packages were assembled for homebuyers. Today, more than
400 new families join many long-time residents in calling the
neighborhood home. Residents enjoy an urban lifestyle, living mere
minutes from the exciting shopping, dining and entertainment
opportunities that abound in downtown Indianapolis.
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The neighborhood has an active homeowners association that provides
quality-of-life services including neighborhood parks and public
lighting, sponsors neighborhood events like an annual garage sale,
neighborhood cleanups, group dinners and more. There are plenty of
opportunities to participate on neighborhood committees (social, garden, and crimewatch). This website maintains a sometimes lively but open discussion
about neighborhood issues, and the HOA also publishes a regular
newsletter and
holds regular neighborhood meetings.
The neighborhood is also covered by
design guidelines that result in
traditional-style homes with front porches, diverse colors, detached garages and
plenty of windows. That doesn't mean all the houses look historic however;
you'll find a wide range of architectural styles in Fall Creek Place!
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Facts & Figures
- There are currently nearly 400 homes in Fall Creek Place, five years
after the project began. The initial market study indicated that
aggressive marketing efforts could yield about 45 home sales per year.
Fall Creek Place more than doubled this projection and as a result is
expanding eastward with Phase IV, which will include approximately 110
additional new homes.
- Half of all homes sold in Fall Creek Place were sold as affordable
homes, meaning the buyers earned at or below 80% of the City's median
income. Homes in the neighborhood have sold for as low as $94,000 and
as high as nearly $400,000, a price range unlikely to be found in any other
neighborhood in the Midwest and keeping true to the vision of a mixed-income
neighborhood.
- Total home sales will exceed $60 million in the original three phases,
and total new household income created by the new homeowners will approach
$20 million annually. The neighborhood will also add $1.2 million to
the local tax base.
- The neighborhood is much "greener" than before, with one new city park,
three new neighborhood parks and a new linear greenway along Fall Creek.
- $15 million of public infrastructure improvements brought completely new
sidewalks, street and alley resurfacing, historic lighting, tree planting
and buried utilities.
- Fall Creek Place has won four national awards for excellence in
planning, design and community development, and has been featured in eight
national magazines.
- Fall Creek Place is a partnership between the
City of Indianapolis and
King Park Area Development Corporation.
Additional support is provided by the
Historic Landmarks Foundation of
Indiana. Fall Creek Place development is managed by
Mansur Real Estate Services.
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| The Neighborhoods
of Fall Creek |
| When people refer to "Fall Creek Place," they may be
referring to the neighborhood or to the homeowners' association.
Not every home in the Fall Creek Place neighborhood is a member of the
Fall Creek Place HOA, which can cause confusion.
Geographically, the Fall Creek Place neighborhood stretches from 22nd
Street on the South to Fall Creek on the north, and from the properties
on the east side of College Avenue to the properties on the west side of
Pennsylvania Street. This neighborhood is actually made up of
several entities, including new or renovated Fall
Creek Place HOA homes, the Fall Creek Proper
neighborhood, a collection of 30 duplexes known as
Unity Park, and many other new or old homes and businesses that
don't fall under any of these entities. Much of the Fall Creek
Place neighborhood is also part of the Bruce's Place
neighborhood association, the New Northside
neighborhood association, and the umbrella
Citizens Neighborhood Coalition.
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Click here to download a map showing the various neighborhoods that make
up Fall Creek Place. |
Fall Creek Place Homeowners' Association
The FCP HOA is comprised of mandatory dues-paying members based on the
attachment of
HOA covenants to the deed of the property. Most HOA member property
was at one time owned by the City of Indianapolis, who attached these covenants
to the property before the lots were sold to homeowners. Each of these
homeowners is required to be a member of the HOA and pay dues to support it.
The HOA itself is incorporated as a legal entity, has
bylaws that outline responsibilities, and is guided by a board of directors
elected by the HOA membership. The HOA owns three neighborhood parks: 23rd
Street and Alabama Street, 25th Street and Alabama Street, and Sutherland Avenue
and Central Avenue. The HOA also has regular social events and
neighborhood meetings that are open to the entire neighborhood and also oversees
the crimewatch program (again, open to the entire neighborhood). The HOA
welcomes and actively encourages participation in HOA functions, although by law
only members may vote in HOA elections and to spend HOA funds.
To be a member of the HOA, the covenants must be attached to a property.
While the City of Indianapolis did this for most existing HOA members, there is
nothing preventing any property owner from attaching the covenants to their
property and compelling all future owners to be members. However, all
member property must comply with HOA covenants, which include the
design guidelines. Many existing homes may be required to incur
significant upgrades to their property which may be expensive and may actually
be historically inappropriate if they were to join the association and comply
with the covenants.
It should also be noted that not every new home in the neighborhood is
necessarily a member of the HOA. If a property was privately owned and the
HOA covenants were not attached, anything built on the property would not be a
member of the HOA.
Fall Creek Proper
Fall Creek Proper is a compact neighborhood that preceded the development of
Fall Creek Place and is located between 25th Street on the south, Fall Creek
Parkway on the north, Delaware Street on the west, and Central Avenue on the
east. Fall Creek Proper homes were newly built with similar historic
qualities of Fall Creek Place HOA homes. There are actually several new
homes within the boundaries of Fall Creek Proper that are also members of the
Fall Creek Place HOA. Fall Creek Proper also maintains its own active
neighborhood association.
Unity Park
Unity Park is made up of 30 duplex homes (60 total homes) located along
Alabama Street, New Jersey Street, and Central Avenue. Constructed in the
mid 1990s, Unity Park homes replaced the Hometowne public housing complex and
were jointly developed by the Hometowne (now Unity Park) Residents Council,
King Park Area Development Corporation, and
the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership
(INHP). The homes were financed with low-income housing tax credits
through the IRS and as a project-based Section 8 development, where the
Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidizes approximately 70% of the
rental rates. The homes are managed by Van Rooy Properties.
Unity Park was envisioned as a homeownership venture, whereby tenants would
receive homeownership counseling and eventually convert rent payments to down
payments to buy the home. While this has not happened to date, the
transition to homeownership is still expected to occur. The Unity Park project has approximately fifteen years
left on the tax-credit imposed requirement that they remain affordable for
low-income families.
Bruce's Place Neighborhood Association
The Bruce's Place Neighborhood Association, named after the original
subdivision plat for much of the area, is a neighborhood organization with
boundaries of 21st Street on the South, Fall Creek on the north, Broadway Street
on the east, and Pennsylvania Street on the west. Bruce's Place was formed
in the mid-1990s to give a voice to residents, and today it still functions
primarily as a representative for existing homeowners.
New Northside Neighborhood Association
The New Northside Neighborhood Association covers the far-eastern portion of
Fall Creek Place, with boundaries of 22nd Street on the south, Sutherland Avenue
on the north, Park Avenue on the west, and the Monon Trail on the east.
Citizens Neighborhood Coalition
The Citizens Neighborhood Coalition is an umbrella organization representing
all neighborhood organizations within its boundaries of 10th Street on the
south, 30th Street on the north, Pennsylvania Street on the west, and the Monon
Trail on the east.
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