Kerry Michael Manders remembers how the Crooked Creek neighborhood felt when he was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.
“When I was a kid, it was vibrant. It was a mini Broad Ripple. We had a great grocery store, a butcher, drug stores and soda fountains which we all rode our bikes to.”
But the neighborhood as Manders remembers it is long gone. Most of the mom-and-pop businesses that helped give the neighborhood its soul were replaced by corporate giants like Starbucks and Walmart. That’s especially true at busy intersections such as Kessler Boulevard West Drive and Michigan Road.
“It’s an underserved area,” Manders said. “If you look at the area around 60th Street and Michigan Road, it’s almost like a ghost town.”
Manders believes the neighborhood deserves more. He’s working to bring the best parts back by spearheading an effort, along with residents and local artists, to build the Crooked Creek Cultural Campus, an 8-acre performing arts facility on 62nd Street and Michigan Road. The campus will serve residents in various capacities and inspire more investment in the area.
Manders is fully invested in making this project a success. He mortgaged his home and donated tens of thousands of dollars to get the idea for the campus off the ground.
His commitment has inspired dozens of people and businesses to donate money for the campus. Even so, the project is not yet fully funded, and another $1 million is needed to purchase 4.5 acres of land in order to break ground next year.
Indianapolis singer and Crooked Creek resident Teresa Reynolds, of the Indy-based R&B band Teresa Reynolds and the Slicktones is part of the campus board. She believes the campus would greatly benefit the neighborhood.
“This city is absolutely rife with talent, and we deserve something like this,” she said. “People should invest in this and bring it to fruition. I think we’ll have a disproportionately positive impact on our city, and it really is an opportunity to bring our city to the next level.”
For Manders, it’s been a long time coming.
He’s worked with neighborhood residents to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood as part of the Crooked Creek Community Council for decades. The group had some major victories, including successfully advocating for the construction of the Michigan Road branch of the Indianapolis Public Library in 2018.
But he says progress slowed after the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. He thinks the campus will be a way to bring the community back together and inspire others to see its potential, too.
“(COVID-19) really destroyed the sense of community, and the organization fell apart,” he said.
A campus designed by the neighborhood
A 25-member committee made up of artists, musicians, clergy and residents with other expertise helped create the vision for the campus.
Their dream is to plan a campus that will serve the community’s needs from the ground up. They want to avoid repurposing an old building like the Stutz downtown, a co-working space that originally was the manufacturing facility for the Stutz Motor Car Co.
“I think it’s really exciting to be able to go into it and say, ‘This is what we want. This is what we need,’” Reynolds said.
The committee came up with features for the 15,000-square-foot campus, like a 200-seat indoor multi-use theater, an art gallery, an educational recording studio, multipurpose conference and event rooms, a catering kitchen and a place to eat outdoors.
With those amenities, Manders and Reynolds hope to hold events that will bring the community together, including concerts, art exhibitions, plays, movie nights and band competitions. Manders said they hope to preserve woods on the campus and add trails or a gazebo.
The campus could also be used for community group meetings, forums and educational opportunities. Manders said the campus board is working with organizations such as Indy Parks and IU Herron School of Art and Design to bring in experts that can teach classes like art or financial literacy.
“We’re doing it for ourselves, you know, like, I want to be able to have a place that I can go to in my neighborhood,” Reynolds said. “I think that our community would really be able to benefit from something that is a five minutes’ drive, and for a lot of people, it would be walkable.”
Learn more about the project
To learn more about the planned Crooked Creek Cultural Campus, check out their website.
You can also learn more about getting involved at the future campus, including how to donate your time or money at their dedicated webpage.
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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