Gary Mayor Eddie Melton announces partnership with University of Notre Dame to revitalize downtown Gary

Revitalizing downtown Gary means ending its decline and isolation

Contributed By: The 411 News

Gary’s Genesis Towers (formerly the Hotel Gary, now a senior citizens housing residence) and the crumbling frame of City Methodist Church was the backdrop as Gary’s Mayor Eddie Melton announced the first step in the revitalization of downtown Gary.

The mayor could see an entire block of green space at 6th and Broadway, where abandoned retail structures had stood for decades until they met the wrecking ball.

Alongside him were the people who will be helping to realize that first step, his Director of Redevelopment Chris Harris and the University of Notre Dame’s Marianne Cusato. Together, they will create a 10-year master plan for the city’s downtown, a plan designed to bring growth and investment instead of decline and isolation.

Revitalization means there will have to be something that will attract people to live, work, and visit the city’s downtown.

For Harris, revitalization means following the mayor’s vision to reconnect the city’s neighborhoods to downtown.

“Downtown Gary is critical to our redevelopment plan to strengthen our city's tax base. Downtowns are financially the most productive locations and neighborhoods of a city, and responsible for financing a lion's share of basic services that are enjoyed by residents of all neighborhoods,” Harris said.

Harris sees an opportunity to plan a walkable, mixed-use downtown that includes housing and commercial spaces instead of the business corridor that exists now along Broadway and along 5th Avenue.

You cannot have a city without housing says Cusato, whose job is to help Gary make its plans a reality.

“We’ll be looking for missing middle housing types; it won’t be just single family and large apartment buildings. There will be duplexes, accessory dwelling units like cottages for seniors,” she explained. “We are looking to have different housing types at different price points; if there’s commercial downstairs, we’ll be designing housing above.”

Cusato is a professor in the School of Architecture at Notre Dame and is the director of its Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative. The Initiative works with communities within a 100-mile radius of Notre Dame, on issues similar to Gary. It has assisted with community development efforts and created action plans in Kalamazoo, Michigan; in Elkhart and La Porte, Indiana.

Mayor Melton said the plan for the rebirth of downtown Gary got its jumpstart in his final year as Indiana State Senator, representing Gary and nearby communities.

In 2023, he authored Indiana SB 434. The bill made available two state grants of $3 million dollars each, from the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority to the City of Gary for blight elimination within the Gary Metro Transportation Development District, if Gary brings $6 million dollars in matching funds.

Earlier this year, Hard Rock Casino of Northern Indiana donated $3 million to help Gary meet its matching fund requirement.

Now that the city is close to identifying the remaining $3 million to complete the matching funds requirement, it will have $12 million for blight elimination in the Gary Metro TDD.

TDDs (Transportation Development Districts) collect income tax and property tax revenues that are returned for reinvestment in the area.

Developable land is abundant in the boundaries of the Gary Metro TDD, extending south from the Gary Metro Station at 4th Avenue & Washington Street, along Broadway to 19th Avenue. The TDD western boundary is in the Horace Mann area. The TDD eastern boundary is the Emerson area.

The railroad track at Broadway and 9th Avenue marks the southern edge of Gary’s downtown. South of 9th Avenue and until its end point, the TDD extends only a block or two east and west of Broadway.

With construction of the new Gary Metro station starting in 2025, the 10-year master plan will include building up and improving the areas around the South Shore rail line station and the Gary Public Transit bus station, fulfilling the purpose of TDD’s – to promote economic and transportation-oriented development.

Already set for demolition is the parking garage on 4th Avenue, across the street from the Gary Metro station.

Together, Harris and Cusato must identify other parcels in downtown Gary, adding to that green space at 6th & Broadway that is ready for development. Possibly, the City Methodist Church site may be next on the list.

In August, Cusato’s team will hold two public listening sessions, followed by a weeklong public planning session. Cusato calls the process a “Dean’s Charrette.”

The listening sessions, on August 5 and August 9, will ask Gary residents to give input on what they would like to see in their city’s downtown rebirth.


University of Notre Dame’s Marianne Cusato, at podium; second row l-r, Gary Mayor Eddie Melton, Gary Corporation Counsel Carla Morgan, Gary Director of Redevelopment Chris Harris, 5th District Gary Common Councilwoman Linda Barnes Caldwell, and Gary Communications Director Erika Blackwell.


Gary’s 600 block of Broadway, where abandoned retail structures had stood for decades until they met the wrecking ball.

Story Posted:07/26/2024