In 2013, Indianapolis spent $14 million turning a $1 abandoned baseball stadium into 138 apartments, keeping the old grandstand as residents’ view

Residents moved into Stadium Lofts in Indianapolis in 2013, which used to be a baseball stadium back in the day. The old Bush Stadium had been converted into 138 apartments, and much of the original structure was retained and the baseball field was still visible from the homes. The developers had acquired the abandoned stadium for just $1 and spent about $14 million on the conversion.Bush Stadium opened in 1931, became home to the Indianapolis Indians and later hosted baseball during the 1987 Pan American Games. The stadium also appeared as a stand-in for Chicago's Comiskey Park in the 1988 film Eight Men Out. After the Indians moved downtown to Victory Field in 1996, the old ballpark went through less conventional uses, which included a short-lived dirt-track racing operation and a period when the site was used to store vehicles from the federal Cash for Clunkers program.Bush Stadium had been sitting without a clear long-term purpose by the time Core Redevelopment took on the property, with the company choosing to preserve the structure rather than replacing it with a conventional apartment building. The Downtown Indianapolis development record describes Stadium Lofts as a renovation of the former stadium and lists 138 housing units and $5.3 million in public funding.Apartments were built inside the old ballparkThe conversion began in 2011 and the finished development contained studios, one-bedroom apartments and two-bedroom units, with the existing stadium forming part of the residential complex. Geralyn Strecker was the first resident to sign a lease, with her living room being positioned behind home plate, which meant that the former baseball field was still part of her view after the stadium had become her home. When Stadium Lofts opened on July 27, 2013, all 138 units had been leased.Original features were incorporated into the redevelopment, while the relationship between the apartments and the old field remained visible. The idea was to retain enough of the old building for residents to see what had been there before, which made the project different from a typical historic renovation.The $1 purchase was only the beginningThe stadium itself changed hands for $1, while the redevelopment cost roughly $14 million. Indianapolis Business Journal reported that the project combined public and private financing, which included a $5 million city contribution, while the city’s current development record lists $5.3 million in public dollars.The developers also had to convince people that apartments in an old ballpark could work, since the neighborhood around the stadium had not yet become the residential and technology district that later development would bring. At the time, the project was therefore a bet on both the building and the surrounding area. Core planned another 144 apartments beside the former ballpark, known as Stadium Flats. Construction on that phase began in October 2013, and expanded the residential redevelopment beyond the apartments inside the old stadium.People had come to Bush Stadium to watch games for decades, but after the redevelopment, residents could still look across and view the same former playing area from their homes. Stadium Lofts opened in 2013 with 138 apartments, and turned a stadium that had spent years without a clear future into housing. The $1 acquisition price became the memorable part of the story, but the more consequential decision was that instead of demolishing the old ballpark, the developers made its structure part of the homes built inside it.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.