The capital structure the 2019 law set
Senate Enrolled Act 7, signed by Governor Eric Holcomb in late April 2019, put the stadium under public ownership and left everything around it private. The Capital Improvement Board of Managers of Marion County would own the venue. Indy Eleven would lease it and operate it. Keystone Group would develop the apartments, the offices, the retail and the hotel.
The law followed attempts that did not pass. Wikipedia records an 18,500-seat stadium at $87 million shelved in the Indiana Senate in 2014, a 2015 revival rejected in favour of a $20 million renovation of Michael A. Carroll Stadium, and no bill in the 2017 session.
$550 million, then $1 billion
January 2019 put the first figure on the district. A 20,000-seat stadium would anchor a $550 million development with 600 apartments, more than 100,000 square feet of retail, 150,000 square feet of office and a 200-room hotel.
On 24 June 2022 the club announced the site. Keystone Group had acquired more than 20 acres bordered by West Street, Kentucky Avenue and the White River. The project was expected to exceed a $1 billion investment. Populous was named lead designer, Browning Day the architect of record, and AECOM Hunt the construction manager for the stadium portion.
The $1 billion figure is the total project amount. Wikipedia records it that way, and the 2022 release applied it to the full riverfront development.
Two votes in late 2023 and the revenue share
The city created a special tax district around the site. The Department of Metropolitan Development approved it unanimously on 1 November 2023. The City-County Council followed unanimously on 20 November 2023. The district uses a portion of state and local tax revenue to pay related infrastructure costs. A predevelopment agreement passed the Metropolitan Development Commission, and the mayor's office submitted a Professional Sports Development Area for the site.
What the city withdrew in May 2024
On 25 April 2024 Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that he had spoken with Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber about an expansion team. Keystone said in a statement that the administration was preparing to walk away from the stadium deal. The mayor's office denied it and said a proposal had been made between Keystone and Indy Eleven, not with the city.
On 14 May 2024 Chief Deputy Mayor Dan Parker told WRTV that the rejected project was not viable right now. He said the financing had been arranged for a USL stadium and not an MLS stadium. He said the Eleven Park location was much tighter than the site near the downtown heliport. The city's own development area proposal went to the City-County Council on 3 June 2024, which voted 16 to 8 to adopt it. The Central Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council had endorsed the proposal that morning. Its president, Jon Hooker, told WRTV the Eleven Park team was not ready to go and did not know the schedule.
The developer's position
Keystone published its own account during the May 2024 fight. More than $26 million of private money had gone into site preparation and stadium design. The company offered the land needed for the stadium to the city for zero dollars. It stated that the stadium and the private development would be funded by private investment and by capturing economic activity the district generates. It stated that the private partners had agreed to guarantee public infrastructure investment. Rezoning, demolition and site remediation were complete.
The purchase offer and the cemetery
On 22 May 2024 the city offered to buy the site, citing the former Greenlawn Cemetery beneath it. IBJ reported that the letter named no price and that the city said it would pay an average of two appraisals. Keystone had found 87 burial plots containing remains across a six-acre first phase. Mirror Indy reported that the city had already paid Keystone $2 million in 2023 for one acre needed for the Henry Street bridge. No source publishes the outcome of the purchase offer or the current standing of the taxing district.
What the financing gap means for the delivery schedule
The delivery schedule rests on one dependency, and that dependency carries no date. The May 2023 release projected a summer 2025 opening. A USL Championship article of 12 April 2024 moved completion to 2026. The Wikipedia infobox still carries 2026 as planned.
No source publishes a construction start, a revised opening or a stadium financing close. The tax capture needs an operating venue and a tenant before it generates the revenue it repays. The land sits in event parking. Leon Bates, a member of the community advisory group for the bridge project, put the acreage still to be addressed at 23.5 acres on land privately owned by Keystone Group.
The booking base that exists now
A revenue team on this corridor prices the calendar that is published. Bradford Allen, citing CoStar and STR, records downtown occupancy at 64.7 percent against a U.S. average of 62.4 percent, RevPAR at $135.20 and average daily rate at $209.11. Engine publishes an Indianapolis par rate of $128 a night across 1.2 million observations from May 2024 to April 2026, with January at $114 and February at $107.
The convention base carries 7,100 downtown rooms, 4,700 of them connected to the Indiana Convention Center by skywalk. The convention center's own event feed lists eight bookings in January 2027 and thirteen from 1 January to 15 February.
The $40 million Greenlawn Memorial Bridge opens in early 2027 on its own schedule. It connects the Elanco headquarters in White River State Park to downtown and extends the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Excavation of 1,709 grave shafts added $12 million and a year to that project.