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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