The west side will be home to a research building that will turn pure science into products that help people and animals — the One Health Research Institute.
The 150,000-square-foot facility will house advanced research laboratories, shared research infrastructure and equipment to connect researchers, clinicians and entrepreneurs from Purdue University and Elanco and other companies in the future.
The institute will be built on the grounds of the 70-acre One Health Innovation District in the West Indianapolis neighborhood next to the Elanco Animal Health global headquarters. The institute is expected to be completed by 2030 and will serve as the district’s anchor.
The district will be similar to Purdue’s Discovery Park District at its West Lafayette campus, which has helped researchers launch technologies with businesses.
Helping scientists help people
The One Health Innovation District was created a few years after the Indiana Economic Development Corp. bought the former General Motors stamping plant on the west side of the White River in 2020 for redevelopment.
The development corporation was able to convince Elanco to move its headquarters from Greenfield to Indianapolis. As Elanco was building the headquarters in West Indianapolis in 2024, the company and Purdue signed a memorandum of understanding with the development corporation. They agreed to establish a research innovation district and build a shared use facility there.
Last August, the state sold Elanco 56 acres of land, which Elanco CEO Jeff Simmons said would give his company an “accelerated path” to creating the district.
Simmons said the One Health Research Institute will bring chemistry, biology, data and production expertise together and turn them into solutions that impact lives every day.
“We will remove barriers between discovery and delivery,” he said. “By bringing academia and enterprise together under one roof, we believe we can move innovation from the lab to the world with unprecedented speed and scale.”
Simmons said the institute hopes to kickstart innovations that led to major business successes, like the creation of the insecticide spinosad by Eli Lilly and Co. that kills many harmful insects but spares beneficial bugs like lady bugs and spiders.
Spinosad was created from a soil sample from a rum distillery in the Virgin Islands and eventually led to the establishment of the multi-billion dollar company DowElanco, now Corteva Agriscience.
Simmons said several companies involved in biotech, veterinary services, oncology, microbiomes and crop protection have already signed memorandums of understanding to become a part of the One Health Innovation District, but their names would not be revealed until those agreements are finalized.
Interim Purdue University President Mitch Daniels said the institute will help ensure that helpful science does not go ignored.
“It’s not enough to publish that peer-reviewed paper. It’s not enough to receive accolades (in) one’s discipline. It has to be of value to people. It has to make this a better world, and we take that as our fundamental assignment at Purdue,” he said.
Plans for the area also included the construction of the Greenlawn Memorial Bridge and an extension of the White River State Park. The bridge will be completed in 2027, but plans for the park extension were scrapped by the state due to a lack of funding.
Helping the neighborhood succeed
West Indianapolis neighborhood residents are hopeful the development will spur jobs.
The neighborhood has a few businesses, including City Dump Records, Postal Recording and longtime mainstay Barry’s Pizza and Wings.
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful has plans to build an urban ecology and workforce development center there in the next few years.
But the neighborhood is nowhere close to its heyday last century when major companies like GM, Chrysler and Link-Belt had manufacturing plants there that hired many people in the neighborhood.
Daniels, who also served as governor of Indiana from January 2005 to January 2013, said the One Health Innovation District could help spur more development in West Indianapolis and potentially revitalize the neighborhood.
“Purdue has been drowning in applications from outstanding young people from Indiana and other parts of America, we think we’ve got a great brain gain opportunity,” Daniels said. “If we can attract more businesses in the high tech areas that Purdue excels in, we know that more of those students will stay here, make their lives here and new companies will come.”
Daniels is also overseeing Purdue’s expansion in Indianapolis, which began after its split from Indiana University in 2024 under his successor, former President Mung Chiang. He left Purdue to become president of Northwestern University.
Since the split, Purdue has acquired land along West Street to create a downtown campus. The school has also expanded into the west side.
Its Motorsports Engineering program and Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center work out of the Dallara Experience Hub on Speedway’s Main Street, and its Accessible Precision Audiology Research Center is based at the 16 Tech Innovation District in Riverside. Purdue also purchased the Northwest Indianapolis Research Building at 5735 W. 96th St. in July for more research space.
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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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