Relocation Advice - Indianapolis, IN

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi All,

I recall a few similar threads in the past and was hoping to pick some of your brains for any insight. We’re going to be relocating to Indy. Looking for advice on where to land. We’re 2 young professionals wanting to be within a 15-30 minute drive of mile square during rush hour traffic. Would vastly prefer renting a house over an apartment/condo. Budget is fairly flexible. Goal is to rent for another 1-2 years to get our bearings before making the decision to buy a house. School districts are not a consideration (child-free)

What neighborhoods should we look into?

What neighborhoods should we straight out avoid?

We’ve heard good things about broadripple but the commute seems to be hit or miss in rush hour traffic. Leaving early/late wouldn’t be an option as far as we know currently.

Lastly, best bike shop and swimming areas? IU natatorium is pretty close to work-- Does anyone have experience with it or should I look elsewhere?

Would greatly appreciate any help here, We’re a bit overwhelmed in our search and outside of one distant family member and 1 set of friends we don’t have too much advice to go on currently. Thanks!!

2

Bump.

I live in Indy, I’ll try to answer your questions when I’m at lunch.

3

I live in the suburbs west of Indy, Plainfield area. I’m not familiar with “mile square”, where in Indy is that? The Plainfield area is pretty nice. We are 25 mins from downtown, easy access to country roads for riding/running and have about 20 miles of paved trails inside the town limits. We are limited to 2 pools locally with limited hours/lanes though.

The nat is a great place to swim, but they do tend to close a few times a year for events. They switch between long course and short course depending on the season, summer/winter. There is also a YMCA downtown that’s fairly new and has 4 short course lanes.

If there is anything else I can help with, please let me know.

4

Thanks for the response! Mile square is just what we’ve heard the central downtown Indy referred to as (between North/East/South/West roads). We’re going to be working on the west side of DT indy, Specifically off of West Washington. I believe I’ve been out in the plainfield area before on business. I do think riding would be nice out there.

When you say 25 minutes to DT, is that in rush hour traffic? Google seems to think it is 24-40 minutes with rush hour traffic.

And thanks for the advice on swimming. I focus on cycling right now but like the idea of swimming occasionally so I won’t be completely bothered if they shut down a few times a year.

Thanks again!

5

Not sure about neighborhoods as I also live in the burbs on the southwest side close to the airport. I can get to the downtown Y or the Nat in less than 30 minutes since we live close to 465. I used to swim at the Nat with the masters group which was really good, but I stopped because it was closed so much during the year for meets that it was frustrating.

As far as bike shops, Bicycle Outfitters Indy is on the west side on Washington Street. There is also Gray Goat on the south side and Endurance House on the far north side.

Since I live on the southwest side, I really like riding south into Martinsville and even closer to Bloomington to get some great climbing. It’s not mountains but it’s still great. If you can, Brown County State Park is a great place to ride - either road bikes or miles and miles of mountain biking - some of the best in the country. And if you do, you should check out Nashville - great little town with good restaurants. I prefer the fried biscuits at the Nashville House, but make sure you call to see if they’re open. And Brown County in the fall is amazing.

6

I would choose Meridian Kessler over Broad Ripple. Broad Ripple is nice, but is more collegey/bary versus an actual neighborhood. Both have access to the Monon Trail, which you can run on for miles.

Another good in-town option is the Mass Ave neighborhood. Very close to downtown, but has its own roster of restaurants and activities.

Any selection inside of 465 will mean you’ll be riding a fair amount of urban roads until you can get out into the country.

I don’t have a good gauge on pools other than to echo the Nat really can’t be beat, especially, if you are working close to it.

Be sure to make it down to Bloomington in April to watch the Little 500!

Enjoy Indiana!

7

I live on the near West side and can’t recommend it enough. It’s roughly 15-20 minutes to downtown if you got traffic, 15 minutes to Eagle Creek Park and a Y isn’t too far away either. Other than that, I’d suggest looking around 86th Street. Those are pretty nice neighborhoods.

My go to bike shop is Bike Line in Broad Ripple. There’s two locations in the greater Indy area, but the broad ripple one is less commercial and more independently operated feeling. 51 Speed Shop has a location in town as well. They’re pricey, but Dave Ripley is a goddamn genius and an all around great guy.

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions. And welcome to a pretty nice city!

8

My wife and I live in downtown Indy, just outside the Mile Square. In terms of rental housing, it’s going to be very hit or miss to stay close to downtown. Look in the Lawrence area, and Historic St. Joseph’s neighborhood, but avoid anything on the north side from about 16th street to 42nd. Meridian-Kessler is going to be near Butler University, lots of good options there, but lots of college kids, too. Apartments are easier to find, but downtown is becoming more of a student’s market than a young professional’s market.

I used to live in Plainfield (madcapper22 is my coach) and echo the riding quality of the area. I commuted to downtown (on the circle) in about 30 minutes one way. Key thing to remember is that most people are driving into the city to work, Plainfield being a primary exception, then driving home at night. North of town is especially congested, but lots of cyclists live farther north too.

I have a good rate at the Nat, but when that expires I’ll likely look elsewhere. They close pretty regularly for events, which usually last a week or more, and you’re left hanging out to dry in terms of a replacement pool. That said, the events are usually pretty cool, and the pool itself is immaculate. There is a new downtown YMCA which is pretty nice, and LA Fitness/Lifetime Fitness locations generally have pools also.

The Monon trail runs north and south, good option to get to and from, but can be busy on the weekend. Downtown the canal is pretty clear midday, and weekday evenings, but forget it on the weekends (when it’s nice). Drivers in the area can be hit or miss, but I’ve ridden some of the “worst” possible roads, and if you command your space drivers are generally amenable.

Indy is a good place to be, glad to welcome another triathlete to the area. If I can be of help, don’t hesitate to let me know!

9

I am just west of Eagle Creek Park (technically Indy, but Brownsburg Schools). I love the location, especially being so close to EC - you can run forever and there are a few decent hills. You can also do some biking there if you want (you will want to leave the park for big rides).

The following are in your range:
Brownsburg
Avon - great but traffic can be a nightmare. Try to get North of 10th Street (I’d have to be in love with a house to move here, and my sister and step-daughter live there)
Plainfield - great community benefits out there
Meridian-Kessler is nice but $$$
Broad Ripple - hit and miss. Some real nice spots, and some dumps. A lot of people in their 20s. This is the main party area in Indy really.

It’s really going to depend on what type of area/scene you are into. If you want bars and restaurants, Meridian/Kessler and BR are your places. If you want quieter, I’d look at Plainfield or NW Indy/East Brownsburg.

The Nat is great, but parking is extra, which kind of sucks (there is a masters program there). I swim at LA Fitness as it’s pretty empty. There are a few YMCAs around.
Indy Aquatic Masters has numerous pools around the city.

Bike Shop - 51 Speedshop (best fit around), A1 Cyclery, Bicycle Outfitters Indy, Bike Line, BGI, etc - really depends where you live. I do most of my own wrenching and anything I can’t do, I go over to 51SS.

Feel free to Message me.

10

I don’t live in Indianapolis but my wife grew up there, I have a ton of relatives and a daughter that live there and another daughter who went to college there so Indy is a bit of a second home. I 2nd the Meridian-Kessler area and that is where I would live if I moved there. I have driven downtown from there a million times but admittedly not too often at rush hour. I’m a bit jaded coming from a bigger city but I can not imagine commuting to and from downtown from there being bad and I know folks who have done it every day for decades and I’ve never heard a complaint. If that 6-8 miles is going to bug you, downtown is your only option :wink: But there are areas in or near downtown that are nice so that may be an option worth looking at.

The Riviera Club is right in the neighborhood and while an older facility, it has an outdoor 50m pool and indoor 25y pool and is pretty cheap to join. The IUPUI Natitorium is a great facility, world class actually, but the down side to that is it hosts a ton of swim meets and several teams train there so drop in lap swim availability might get tight at times but if it fits your schedule, you can’t do better.

If you are working downtown, there is also a velodrome right around the corner :wink:

11

Aside from the aforementioned recommendations, you might want to check out the Irvington area. It’s on the East side, and maybe 15 minutes or so to downtown.

The Fountain Square area has gone through a revival of sorts.

As much as I love the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway isn’t really a very nice area to live.

The Castleton area is not considered all that great anymore.

It seems the near north side is where all the shootings and stuff happen.

Bike/Tri shops:
There are quite a few shops scattered around the area, so it kind of depends on where you end up. Bluegrass Bicycle Company in Brownsburg, Gray Goat, 51 Speedshop on the NE side, Endurance House in Fishers and Zionsville, BGI (3 locations), Bicycle Outfitters Indy, LoKe in Fishers, The Bike Line in Broad Ripple/Carmel, Carmel Cyclery in Carmel, Westfield Cyclesports in Westfield, Matthews Bikes off Pendleton Pike, Hashtag Bikes is somewhere near downtown, Performance Bike in Castleton, to name a few. I’m forgetting some. Velofix is coming online in the area very soon, too.

I know a shop up in Noblesville, but that guy focuses on bike fitting… :wink:

Swimming - I know there are a lot of Master’s programs, including at the Nat. Check out the Fit Livin’ group, if you’re looking to find some like-minded folks to train with. They do a lot of stuff throughout the week, although mostly on the north side of town. There’s another really nice group of folks on the west side of town called PCS Multisport. The “PCS” stands for Plainfield Cycling Syndicate, and PCS Multisport is their triathlete group. I know some folks who do some open water swimming at Morse Lake in Noblesville/Cicero, with kayak support.

And, as someone else mentioned, Brown County is nice. Bloomington is a good place to ride, too. You get some hills down in the southern half of the state. North of Indy is pretty flat.

12

Aside from the aforementioned recommendations, you might want to check out the Irvington area. It’s on the East side, and maybe 15 minutes or so to downtown.

The Fountain Square area has gone through a revival of sorts.

As much as I love the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway isn’t really a very nice area to live.

The Castleton area is not considered all that great anymore.

It seems the near north side is where all the shootings and stuff happen.

I know a shop up in Noblesville, but that guy focuses on bike fitting… :wink:

+1 to Travis. Great bike fitter, great dude.

13

Made the move to Indy a little over 3 years ago, similar life situation to you (couple, “professional” , no kids)

We live in Broad Ripple, on one of the “desirable” streets, but I will echo the sentiments of some of the posters that BR has good and less good spots (bad = less kempt homes). There isn’t really anything in BR proper that I would characterize as unsafe. Our neighbors sell their homes generally soon after they have children, lots of walkable restaurants. I would target this cube: south of Broad Ripple ave, north of Kessler, east of College, West of Indianola.

My house is BR is .20 from the Monon which is a huge benefit for me for running. Good riding takes about 10 miles to get to. Mono would suck for serious riding, go ahead and drop that idea.

I commute north, but occasionally drive downtown in the AM, it’s 20-30 minutes door to door.

In the area I would also look at the Forest Hills and Butler Tarkington neighborhoods, South Broad Ripple is also really heating up and could be a good investment.

I don’t really know anything about downtown neighborhoods so I can’t comment on that.

PM me if you have any other BR questions.

14

I live less than 5 mins from I-70. I take it downtown. I worked downtown for almost a decade and made the commute. Only time it was over 30 mins was the rare occasion that there was an accident. They are currently working on an overpass, I think at Holt and I-70 but that construction should be done sooner than later.

15

So in 17 years I’ve relocated more than 40 people to Indy between Zipp and SILCA. All of them seem to have ended up in Meridian Kessler or Broad Ripple and more than a few of them are now landing in or near downtown in the Mass-Ave to Near-NorthSide type areas. We are moving SILCA (this weekend actually!) from 46th street just east of Meridian Kessler to within the mile-square (800 block of N Capitol) partly because we need the space, but partly to put ourselves right in the heart of this rapidly expanding city.

We just moved a new employee here from out of state, similar situation, young couple, no kids, and they are just in love with the canal area near downtown, and another person who works here is selling a house in Broad Ripple to move down into a new condo on Mass Ave. I personally moved here from out of state 18 years ago and ended up in Carmel (after being told 100 times its the place to go if you have kids) and within 4 years we sold again and moved down to 46th and Meridian as it was just a better fit for our overall lifestyle. From my house in M-K, I’m less than a mile to work, my wife is 4 miles to work (she’s downtown), we are walking distance to half a dozen of the best restaurants in the city, and 4 blocks from the Butler pool and the largest group ride in the city which runs 4 days a week at Henkel field house. Even better, these old neighborhoods are full of houses ranging from $100k-$1million+ so lots of diversity in all senses of the word.

Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions.
Best
Josh

16

I’ll throw in my 2 cents as well. I’m in a similar life stage as you, late 20’s w/no kids and preferring to rent over buy in the area due to not knowing where I want to live past the next year or two.

Currently my wife and I rent on the East side of downtown. East St. & Georgia St. for reference if you look at a map. We really like the area and walk pretty much everywhere we go to eat or drink. I work on the west side out by the airport and have a 20-30 minute commute. Wife works from home now so no issues there. Plenty of places to run downtown, I don’t love it sometimes just because I end up stopping at lights and intersections a lot. I swim at the CityWay YMCA which is about a 10 minute walk for me. Really nice YMCA with a standard 4-5 lane lap pool. I haven’t swam at the Nat, just because of the convenience of cost of the YMCA for me ($48/month for my wife and I). As far as biking, I can’t really help there. If you live downtown, biking will probably be a struggle. I just avoid it and ride my trainer inside. That and square footage are the only downsides of living downtown for me so far.

Neighborhoods I would consider downtown: Mass Ave, Fletcher Place, Ransom Place, Fountain Square (love eating there, wouldn’t want to live there), Herron Morton, Fall Creek Place, Cole Noble, Chatham ARch, Holy Cross, Cottage Home, St. Joseph. Windsor Park area is transitioning, so that could be hit or miss.

One person mentioned not living between 16th & 42nd. That’s not really the case anymore. Fall Creek Place has changed dramatically and is a very nice neighborhood. I would say avoid 25th to 43rd.

Meridian Kessler, Butler-Tarkington and Broad Ripple are all good areas as well. If you want to rent a house, that’s where you’ll have the most luck. Homes downtown are selling so fast that no one is renting anything. Just be careful about rental homes in Butler-Tarkington as it’s close to Butler and you could be renting next to a Frat house or Sorority.

Also, a lot depends on your budget. Living downtown obviously being a lot more expensive. You’ll also have to factor in parking downtown. Many places don’t include parking in the prices they have online. That could be as much as $150/month for one car.

17

Looks like we’ll be neighbors, I live on that block of Capitol!

18

I echo all the people who say Broad Ripple, Meridian-Kessler, and Mass Ave. I have a roadie buddy who lives on Mass Ave. and he gets 3-4 rides in a week, all within the loop, and gets plenty done. You can also get outside the loop fairly easily and hit the rural roads if you’re looking for 50+ mile rides. Also know of people who live in Butler-Tarkington area and love it.

Swimming, you have way more options than you may realize. There’s an absurd number of 50m pools in the Indy area (Brownsburg, Nat, North Central (great option), Carmel, Fishers, HSE) but also lots of good gyms with lap swimming, namely the YMCA, Monon Center, LA Fitness, etc.

Listen to Travis about the bike stuff. He knows his stuff when it comes to that and I trust him on it all.

PM me with questions. Wife and I are your same profile, just that we live/work in the Indy suburbs.

19

When I lived in Indy, I had a house in the Arden neighborhood, which is just north of Broad Ripple on the other side of the White River. Great location IMHO. Walkable to Broad Ripple, reasonably close to downtown as well as access to the 465 loop around the city. Older houses, mature trees, the river… Being single, I could never live in the “burbs” of Indy. My $0.02

20

A few more thoughts, sorry if I am duplicating prior posts:

-Many Indianapolis area neighborhoods have 25 yard lap swimmable pools - open all summer.

-Masters and/or lap swimming is available all over town, early AM, lunch and PM.

-Mountain biking in Indy and southward is not bad at all. Fort Ben, Southwestway, Brown County…

-Major Taylor Velodrome, operated by Marian University, offers great racing opportunities (own your own or just rent a track bike) and spectating.

-Small group of weekly water polo players - from 60 year olds to 16 year olds. This group expands and contracts in size every year or so.

David K