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The Indianapolis Public Schools board will consider selling roughly 16 acres of the former John Marshall school property on the Far Eastside as part of a plan to dispose of the abandoned site in three separate parcels.
The board will vote on Thursday whether to sell the northwest portion of the property that includes the John Marshall building to Ayesha Investments, LLC for $350,000.
The sale is contingent on whether the district can successfully petition the city’s Department of Metropolitan Development to rezone the entire property from school use to special commercial use. That zoning classification allows for commercial, residential, and recreational use, Brandon Sweeney, an operations project manager for the district, told the school board on Tuesday.
The plan is the latest in a yearslong attempt to decide a future for the former school property since it closed as a middle school at the end of the 2017-18 school year. The school opened in 1968 as a high school and closed in 1986 because of declining enrollment. It reopened in 1993, serving as a middle school, a high school, and once again as a middle school before permanently closing in 2018.
The district also must petition the city to slightly modify the boundaries of the three parcels that make up the John Marshall site.The parcel on which the building sits is proposed for sale. The district is working with Indy Parks to include a second, southern 14-acre portion of the property in the Grassy Creek Regional Park master plan.
And a John Marshall task force is developing a plan for a third parcel to the east, which includes 464 parking spaces.
Under the sales agreement, Ayesha Investments would also have an exclusive right to use those 464 parking spaces in the east parcel. The parking is required in order to support rezoning for commercial use, which requires more parking per square foot than schools, according to the district.
The company’s plan for the building is unclear. A law firm listed as a registered agent for the company in state business filings did not respond to a request for comment. No one from the company spoke at the meeting.
Sweeney said he thinks the buyer intends to have the building serve multiple purposes, but he is not sure there’s a finalized plan.
Previous attempts to sell or lease the property, given an “unsatisfactory” rating in a district-commissioned building assessment, have been unsuccessful. In 2018, the district rejected two proposals from parties interested in leasing the property. In 2019, the district made it available to charter schools or state educational institutions for the sale or lease price of $1, in accordance with state law, but no parties were interested.
And after agreeing to sell the site to the city for $725,000, the city informed the district in 2024 that it would not move forward with the purchase, citing over $18 million in deferred maintenance costs for the building.
Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.
