The opening announcement for Georgia Street's new car-free block starts by naming its audience. The Capital Improvement Board's convention center and stadium clients "have been asking for outdoor event space and it is now officially available," according to the ribbon-cutting release from Indiana Convention Center & Lucas Oil Stadium.
The same release also makes the space public. When no event has booked it, the Georgia Street Promenade between Illinois Street and Capitol Avenue is open to everyone from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, with no cars allowed. The block works best for locals once you treat it as the convention center's outdoor room, open to the public between bookings. When the promenade is free depends on the calendar across the street, and starting in December it also depends on a 40-story hotel next door.
A Room With Four Parts, Sized for Receptions
The Capital Improvement Board owns and manages the city's pro sports venues and the convention center. It spent $9.1 million on the project, and the west block officially opened Friday, Oct. 9, with Mayor Joe Hogsett at the ribbon cutting, as IndyStar reported. The block has four sections, and the way they're laid out shows what the board had in mind.
| Section | Where it sits | Approx. size | Surface | What's there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Garden | Steps from the convention center's Georgia Cube entrance | 16,170 sq. ft. | Pet-friendly turf | Open space where tents and staging can go |
| The Terrace | West-center of the block | 6,125 sq. ft. | Pavers and concrete | Tables and chairs, room for tents |
| The Lawn | East-center of the block | 6,548 sq. ft. | Pet-friendly turf | Tables and chairs, trees at each end, a 38-foot platform bench for performances |
| The Grove | Along Illinois Street | Not listed | Pavers and concrete | Heavily shaded seating among trees and limestone boulders |
The Garden is bigger than the Terrace and the Lawn put together, and it sits right at a convention center entrance. That's the part designed for tented receptions. The Grove sits at the opposite end, on Illinois Street, and is built around shade and seating. It's the corner closest to the steakhouses and taverns on South Illinois.
The block also has a permanent food and beverage container whose menu can be customized for private events, programmable lighting, bollards to keep vehicles out, and a north lane closed to traffic for good as a walkway. The tree count went from five before the redesign to nearly fifty. An underground infiltration basin now holds stormwater that used to go into the city system. AECOM Hunt managed construction, and the design came from Merritt Chase and DLZ.
The Calendar Across the Street Sets Your Hours
The public-access terms are short, and they come from the board's executive director, Andy Mallon, in the CIB release:
"It will be closed when in use for private events but otherwise open to the public and closed to vehicular traffic. It is outfitted with landscaping and amenities that make it an ideal location for lunch on a beautiful day or to host all kinds of events."
So the 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. schedule is what's left over after bookings. The convention center's own event calendar is the best advance signal. Two listings land on the week this post goes up:
- The National Science Teaching Association Fall Convention runs Nov. 4 through 7.
- The Monumental Health and Fitness Expo takes place Nov. 6.
Neither one is listed as a promenade event. What they show is when crowds will be walking out of the Georgia Cube and onto the block. On a weekday with no convention, the promenade is most likely to be what Mallon described, a place for lunch. IndyStar reported that on a recent warm Tuesday morning, a few people were sitting in chairs on the promenade while construction went on just feet away.
Why a Downtown Regular Should Care
The blocks south of Monument Circle have never had much like this. IndyStar's Alysa Guffey noted that the south side of downtown mostly lacks the large green spaces found north of the Circle. Much of its edge is parking lots and streets around the convention center, Lucas Oil Stadium and Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Before a Pacers game or after dinner on South Illinois, there was nowhere outdoors to sit down. Now there's pet-friendly turf, shaded tables and a stage within a short walk of all three venues.
The Grove end connects the block to a cluster of established restaurants on South Illinois Street and West Maryland Street:
- Spoke & Steele, 123 South Illinois Street, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- St. Elmo Steak House, 127 South Illinois Street.
- Harry & Izzy's, 153 South Illinois Street, is open until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 p.m. Sunday.
- Nada, 11 West Maryland Street.
Harry & Izzy's closes at 10 p.m. on weeknights, the same time the promenade's public hours end. That leaves a short window for a walk across the block after a weeknight dinner.
In December, the Hotel Next Door Opens Onto the Block
According to the CIB, the promenade sits directly across from the convention center and right up against the Signia by Hilton, the convention center's newest anchor hotel. IndyStar calls the Signia a nearly 40-story tower and downtown's first new skyscraper in more than a decade. Hilton says guest stays begin Dec. 9, 2026, about five weeks after this post goes up.
One of the hotel's venues faces the plaza. The Signia's dining page describes Rosewater's as "the social heart of the hotel opening onto the Georgia Street promenade," pouring regional corn-based spirits with bar bites and showing sports. The rest of the hotel's lineup:
- Torchlight, a two-story cocktail lounge on the 38th floor, set up for golden hour through late night.
- Heartwood, a modern American grill.
- Slipstream, a café, espresso bar and market themed on Indianapolis racing.
- Deck on 5, a seasonal rooftop pool deck with cabanas.
Hilton says the dining program is meant for both travelers and locals, and restaurant reservations will go through OpenTable. Heartwood will serve only breakfast and lunch at first, expanding to all-day dining in the spring. An outside upscale restaurant is planned for summer 2027. Club Signia is described as a private lounge. Once Rosewater's opens, the plaza becomes the hotel's front patio too, which means another set of people will be using the same tables.
East Toward the Fieldhouse, With a Gap in the Middle
The CIB plans to extend the promenade east until it links the convention center to Gainbridge Fieldhouse. On Oct. 9, the city opened bids for a partner on the far eastern block, between Meridian and Pennsylvania streets. That stretch is already partly closed to traffic while Boxcar, a developer tied to the Simon family, builds a Ritz-Carlton hotel there. Bids are due Friday, Nov. 6, so as of this week the eastern block is still a solicitation and no contract has been awarded.
For now the extension skips the middle block, where the Circle Centre Mall redevelopment, a project of about half a billion dollars, is still waiting for a start date. So this winter, Georgia Street has one finished block on the west end, a block waiting on the mall in the middle, and a block being built on the east end. Of the three, only the west block between Illinois and Capitol is open to sit on, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on any day nothing is booked there.
If you're watching how the Signia's opening and the next phases of the promenade affect downtown Indianapolis living, The Carrie Holle Group would be glad to talk it through with you. Schedule a Personal Market Consultation.
