INDIANAPOLIS— As part of Mayor Joe Hogsett's Downtown Resiliency Strategy, more than 300 city employees will be moving back downtown.
"I think it’s great," said Megan Gulandi, with Small Batch Soups.
Gulandi says they've seen a lot of hybrid workers since the pandemic.
"I think it’s great for people to get back downtown and for businesses to be booming, maybe some of these businesses can go into the empty buildings," Gulandi said.
Right now, City-County employees work from satellite locations across Marion County. These employees will backfill space with the City-County building recently vacated by the opening of the Community Justice Campus.
By the end of the year, 300 positions will move into the CCB as part of phase one. In two additional phases, 150 more employees will move in. The Marion County Community Corrections will move from the former Jail I site and IMPD Downtown District will move from Union Station.
"Adding 300 additional employees will really provide some vibrancy for retail businesses and just for day time traffic in downtown," Scarlett Andrews, the Deputy Mayor of Economic Development said.
This move will also save tax payers money. The city will no longer have to lease a privately owned on Madison Avenue. It's a saving of $450,000 a year.
"Just being able to consolidate people we’re already paying for this building and we’re doing some renovations to move them back in, but the rent for us in this building is significantly less than some of our market rate rents," Andrews said.
