Neighbors are transforming a once overgrown bit of land in Fountain Square into a community garden and pocket park.
The triangular patch of grass is along Leonard Street and Virginia Avenue. Dakota Pawlicki, president of the Fountain Square Neighborhood Association, said the goal is to create an inviting space for the community.
“There are fewer and fewer spaces in the city where people can go, someplace free, that they can enjoy being outside or gathering with other folks,” Pawlicki said.
Victoria Gillieron, a longtime customer of the Mass Ave Knit Shop on Virginia Avenue, said she’s seen the property change a lot over time.
“It used to just be grass, and then at one time it was sort of a homeless encampment, and then all of a sudden I saw lilies and sunflowers,” Gillieron said.
Now, it’s become a place where she can imagine herself sitting down to drink coffee or read a book. Susan Brennan, owner of the Mass Ave Knit Shop, said the pocket park would be a great space for her business to host a community event.
“In June there is a knitting-in-public day,” Brennan said. “So next year that would be perfect for that area.”
Fountain Square Neighborhood Association works to revitalize the pocket park on Virginia Avenue in Fountain Square on July 25, 2026, in Indianapolis. Residents volunteered to clean up the space, create benches, paint and plant. Credit: Lee Klafczynski for Mirror Indy
About a dozen volunteers have consistently worked to add the pocket park and refresh an existing community garden that had largely been abandoned.
Paul White, director-at-large for the neighborhood association, said residents were able to salvage some of the chives and native Indiana plants that were sowed years before. They added garden beds filled with sweet peppers, corn, beans and other vegetables that the group hopes to donate to local food pantries. Residents also painted benches and wooden art pieces in the shape of a hand signing the phrase “I love you,” in American Sign Language.
Already, White said he’s seen an uptick in people who have wandered through the garden while walking along the trail.
“When I’m out there watering, there seems to be more people taking a look,” White said.
The space has come a long way, but White said there is still work to be done. He and other neighbors plan to fine-tune the park by putting down more mulch and installing gutters on the storage shed that will direct water into rain barrels.
Indy funded the improvements
The Fountain Fletcher District Association and the neighborhood association used $80,000 from the city’s 2025 Cultural Districts Fund to pay for the work. About half of the funds will pay for refurbishing the Wishful Thinking sculpture near the garden and a new street mural. The other half will support the park, garden, painting art in the right-of-way street murals around the district and supporting the neighborhood’s plaza less than half a mile away along Virginia Avenue.
The Southeast Neighborhood Development, a nonprofit housing and home repair organization near Fountain Square, owns the plaza and also works to help maintain the pocket park.
“Ultimately, we want neighborhood organizations and residents to have the tools and relationships they need to shape these spaces and keep them vibrant for years to come,” wrote its president, Kelli Mirgeaux, in an email.
Residents said the pocket park will also receive trees donated from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, a nonprofit focused on environmental sustainability within local neighborhoods.
If you go
The Fountain Square Community Garden is open to the public. You also can visit during the grand opening on Sept. 19 near 871 Virginia Ave.
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Mirror Indy reporter Elizabeth Gabriel covers the south side of Marion County. Contact her at elizabeth.gabriel@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X at @_elizabethgabs.
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