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Downtown buildings land arts tenants
Tom Harton
March 30, 2010

Two downtown buildings have signed arts organizations to fill vacant street-front spaces.

The start-up Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Inc. will move later this year into 1,100 square feet of space in the Emelie Building at 340 N. Senate Ave. formerly occupied by the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Vonnegut Library, which counts the famous author's son, Mark, among its board members, has been looking for space since it was founded late last year by Julia Whitehead, a medical writer for Eli Lilly and Co.

Whitehead said her group signed a three-year lease for the space and has an option to renew.

The 40,000-square-foot building is controlled by the law firm Katz & Korin, which formed the entity Black Orchid LLC to buy the building in 2003. Black Orchid is named for the business that occupied the building prior to its renovation in the mid-1980s by the architecture firm Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf.

Katz & Korin moved to the building in 2004 and occupies all but the third-floor, which is leased to Indiana University Foundation, and the street-front space the Vonnegut Library will occupy.

That space is essentially an incubator for fledgling arts organizations, said Michael W. Hile, a partner in Katz & Korin, who said the firm donates the space. Hile said the firm enjoyed working with IMOCA and hopes the Vonnegut organization will eventually outgrow the space as the museum did.

The Vonnegut Library will open later this year and will include a gift shop, a reading room, an art gallery and a display about the life of the famous author, who grew up in Indianapolis and died in 2007.

The group will use its new headquarters for small events and exhibits. It will use the Athenaeum, which was designed by Vonnegut's architect grandfather, for larger events.

The Vonnegut Library is consulting with architects, space planners and its board about how to best use the space. But Whitehead said the group doesn't have much of a budget for improvements and likely won't need much because the property is in move-in condition.

She's busy raising money for the organization, a job she says will be made easier by having a physical presence. "There is more interest now that we have a location."

Reprinted with Permission. IBJ Media. 2010