Indianapolis is My Home

16
Aug

Lucas Oil Stadium Tour

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate, Sports

I was one of the few (me and another 9,999) people that were able to score some tickets for the inaugural public tour of the Grand Opening of the new Lucas Oil Stadium here in Indianapolis.

The stadium and functionality of it are very impressive. The crowd control for the event wasn’t very impressive. If there really were only 10,000 people allowed into each tour, their ability to move people into the stadium quickly left something to be desired.

The tour was basically self-guided, you couldn’t go anywhere you wanted, but you basically just wondered around at your own pace and could linger where you wanted. The problem was that you only had two hours. We arrived at the stadium right at 10am when we were supposed to and didn’t make it into the front doors until after 10:30am. We walked around a bit and eventually decided to work our way down to the field itself.  Once you make it down to the field you can’t come back up into the street level concourses, so you’re on your way out at that point. You’re then faced with the decision of just going straight-out the back loading dock ramp or divert to walk past the locker room.

When we started in the line for the locker room, it was 11:10am, we walked out of the stadium, done with our tour, at 12pm. Didn’t get to go "into" the locker room, just walk by it and take a quick picture.

You can see all my photos in my slideshow below.

14
Aug

Scaffolding Accident at M & I Building Downtown

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, News, Real Estate, WRTV - TV Channel 6

The big news downtown today was about three workers that fell from scaffolding on the M & I building downtown. You can read about the event on the IndyChannel website.

The workers were on scaffolding on the south side of the M&I Bank building at Ohio at Pennsylvania streets when the scaffolding malfunctioned, sending them plummeting to between the 12th and 14th floors of the 28-story building, Indianapolis fire Capt. Gregg Harris said.

The power of digital cameras and the Internet allows us to see photos up-close and personal that you won’t be seeing on the news.

Check-out the photos Stephen James has shared on his flickr account that were taken by Joe Black. Stephen works on the 7th floor of the building, the accident occurred on the 12th floor.

09
Aug

Pan American Plaza by Polina Osherov

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Indianapolis History, Local Artists, Lucas Oil Stadium, RCA Dome, Real Estate

Polina Osherov is a local photographer here in Indianapolis and she recently shared this photo with me that she took of the Pan American Plaza area downtown. I just thought this was a great photo showing some of the history of sports in this city.

From the Pan Am Plaza that was built for the Pan American Games that the city hosted in 1987.

You can see the RCA Dome, home of the Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts that was built in 1984 at a cost of $82 million.

Then in the background to the south you’ve got the soon to be opened Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home of the Indianapolis Colts and the home of the 2012 Super Bowl!

01
Aug

Brightpoint Moves HQ and Returns Home

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Local Businesses, Northwest Side, Real Estate

It was almost 20 years ago that Brightpoint started their existence on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. They announce today that they’ll be moving their headquarters back to the Indy and not very far from where they started.

Brightpoint will be moving HQ from Plainfield and into the new building being finished by Interactive Intelligence.

The company, which has about 65 headquarters employees and about 1,000 workers in Indiana, plans to share a new building with software developer Interactive Intelligence Inc. and engineering firm Woolpert Inc. along Interstate 465 north of West 71st Street. The space will allow the company to implement an expansion that calls for up to 60 new headquarters employees in the next seven years.

It’s always good to hear about a company moving to make room for expansion, but I’m sure the loss will be felt by Plainfield as well.

Source: Brightpoint to move HQ to Indy on IBJ

22
Jul

More Tickets Available for Lucas Oil Stadium Tour

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate, WISH - Channel 8

More tickets are going on sale today in about 10 minutes if you’re interested. I’ve already snagged my set of two tickets for my son and I to take the first tour of the day on August 16th.

Twenty thousand tickets will be available Tuesday morning at 10 at the Conseco Fieldhouse box office or Ticketmaster.com. The tickets are free and required.

Not sure if you saw the other recent coverage of some of the seats that are available for fans in the new stadium.

How do you like those puppies? You’d be a bit upset wouldn’t you? They could have at least put up a nice LCD screen on the columns couldn’t they?

You’ve got to wonder if the people that designed the seating have ever been to a game before? Or is this the case of the new stadium needing to meet a specific seating threshold number of seats available? My boss suggested they could have hung seats off the various decks like those toddler seats you clamp on your kitchen table.

WISH TV 8: Indianapolis News and Weather - 20,000 stadium tour tickets available

21
Jul

Starbucks Closing 12 Indianapolis Area Stores

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Carmel, Coffee Shops, Downtown, Greenwood, Indianapolis Area, Keystone, News, Northwest Side, Real Estate, Speedway, West Side

When I first heard about the news that Starbucks has finally appeared to out-grow their britches, I thought I’d read that there weren’t any Indianapolis stores closing. As the image above humorously depicts skewing the original imagery by M.C. Escher, Starbucks always seemed to be everywhere. Between their actual stores and their little satellite stores located in other stores, they’re everywhere!

At one point in our lives, my brothers and I have all worked at a Starbucks store. My middle brother went the furthest with it as he actually opened a new store, which I think is one of the ones being closed now, which doesn’t make any sense to me.

Here are some of the soon to be closed locations:

• College Avenue & Fall Creek Parkway
• 38th and Meridian St
• 3855 E. 96th Street
• 9642 Allisonville Rd.
• 5060 W. 38th St.
• 5945 Crawfordsville Rd
• 3021 W 16th St
• 3801 S. Keystone Ave
• Merchant Square in Carmel
• US 31 & Fry Road in Greenwood
• Albany & 17th St in Beech Grove
• Metropolis Mall 2499 Futura Parkway in Plainfield

I had a Starbucks coffee for the first time in quite awhile on Thursday night. I’ve been cutting back on my coffee purchases in general, but when I do have a drink it’s been purchased from local coffee shop the vast majority of the time.

All-in-all I think closing a number of stores is a great move for Starbucks. I’m sure it will be a great opportunity for local shops and even Dunkin Donuts to make more of run for market share as well.

From my time working at the SBUX though, I think they’re a great company to work for that seems to care about their employees and work with them to keep balance in their lives.

Story Source: Grinding to a halt: 12 local Starbucks
Image Source: MIT Laboratory for Branding Cultures

24
Jun

Public Tours of Lucas Oil Stadium

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate

Here’s your chance to get a personal tour of Lucas Oil Stadium. Well, personal as in you and 19,999 other people you don’t know going with you.

The event is free, but people who want to go will have to get a ticket. Those will be made available starting July 14 on Ticketmaster’s Web site.

Officials said as many as 20,000 people can be accommodated on each of the tours and that more will be added if needed.

Regardless, I think I’ll be trying to get me a ticket for that little deal. Try to take my son too. You can get a video tour here or go straight to Ticketmaster and get your tickets for the live tour here.

Public Invited To Lucas Oil Stadium Tour - Indiana News Story - WRTV Indianapolis

10
Jun

Property Tax Increases for Lake Front Property

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Humor, Real Estate, Weather

A friend of mine sent me this photo of the recent floods and I began wondering if many Hoosier residents should expect some property tax increases for their new lakefront property?

It doesn’t look too bad until you notice the 5ft mailboxes that are almost covered.

03
Jun

ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Coming to Indiana

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Charities, Families, Local Media, People, Real Estate, Volunteers

Do you know a real local hero in our community? The producers at ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition are looking for a family and a home to feature in their TV show.

I just saw this post from Roger at I Choose Indy and thought I’d spread the news.

I know a family that might be a great one to feature on the show, I’ll talk to some friends about nominating them.

If you’re familiar with the show then you probably also know they’ll be needing some volunteers. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open for more information.

04
Dec

"Speed Zone" Development Moving Forward

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Brickyard 400, Business, Business Entrepreneurs, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indy 500, Indy MotoGP, News, Real Estate, Speedway, Sports, US Grand Prix - F1

An article today in the IBJ confirmed that local real-estate developer Mansur Real Estate Services, Inc. has been chosen to lead the redevelopment of the Speedway area to increase the attraction to businesses to come into the area.

I believe they did a tremendous improvement a few years back with the new lamps, median work and other details leading into the Speedway area from off of I-465 on the west side.

I feel anything they can do to further increase the development and commercial viability of that area is going to be worthwhile. What I’m not sure about though is how the residents of the area feel about the development. I know there are a number of people that live right along the main stretch that make a killing by using their property as parking for the hundreds and thousands of race fans that come into the area each year.

With the MotoGP and talks of Formula 1 coming back to the area, I think further developing the area is a plus. I’m sure it’s quite a disruption to the residents of the area though regardless.

Do you live in the area? What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.