Ivy Tech will check in at former hotel 12.15.10

$22.9M Lilly Endowment grant boosts hospitality, food programs

Ivy Tech is buying the former hotel at 2820 N. Meridian St. from the faith-based Institute in Basic Life Principles. It will be called the Indiana Center for Workforce Solutions. / MICHELLE PEMBERTON / Star photo
The old Stouffer's Indianapolis Inn -- a glitzy 13-story hotel that once drew the likes of Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton and Glen Campbell -- has been purchased by Ivy Tech Community College, thanks to the largest grant in the school's history.
School officials said the $22.9 million grant from the Lilly Endowment will allow the college to purchase the old hotel at 28th and Meridian streets and transform it into a new hub for its growing work-force training programs.
"This grant is an indication that Lilly Endowment has confidence in the mission of the school," said Ivy Tech President Tom Snyder, who oversees a statewide system that has experienced historic growth.
"We have to get more workers prepared," Snyder said. "With this facility, there will be more resources for displaced workers and for companies wanting to become as competitive as possible."
The purchase and renovation will allow Ivy Tech to create needed space and amenities for its burgeoning hospitality and culinary arts programs, which have blossomed in recent years. This year, more than 900 students are enrolled in those programs in Indianapolis.
Built in 1967, the 196,000-square-foot building towers over Ivy Tech's main Indianapolis campus. The hotel featured 300 guest rooms, an 800-person ballroom and spacious dining areas serviced by cooks working in massive kitchen areas.
Ivy Tech will use that space for state-of-the-art training facilities, including six lab kitchens, a 70-seat restaurant and kitchen, and a 48-seat bakery/cafe, along with three classrooms -- places where students can learn by doing.
"We need this new building," said 26-year-old student Trisha LeBlanc, in her second year as a culinary major. "This has become a very popular program, and it's not only difficult to get into classes that fill up so fast, but it's also very tight. There is just not enough space now."
Student Matt Steinbronn, a 21-year-old pastry major, agreed.
"In some of the classes, you only have 6 feet of countertop, and that is just not enough to do everything we need to work on our skills," he said. "The new facility sounds like it will be leaps and bounds better for everyone."
Ivy Tech closed on the purchase Friday, buying the building from the Chicago-based Institute in Basic Life Principles, an international faith-based group that purchased the hotel from a bank in 1993 to work with troubled youths and struggling families.
In 2002, the center fell under suspicion when a TV news investigation reported allegations of mistreatment. Although no criminal charges were filed, the ministry's focus shifted away from juvenile cases from local courts to the city's growing Hispanic community, offering classes in English and work-related skills.
Rodger Gergeni, the center's director, will maintain that program for the near future under an arrangement with Ivy Tech. More than 30 families are living there as part of the ministry's "home education" program, which teaches life skills.
The interior of the hotel is in surprisingly good shape, Snyder said as he led a private tour Tuesday. The old lobby still has a shine. Comfortable seating is scattered throughout the hotel's floors. The 13th and top floor still has the look and feel of a fancy restaurant, complete with restored fireplaces, stained glass and other features of the old Frank Van Camp mansion that once stood on the grounds.
The ballroom, where visitors once came to listen to jazz musicians, has been converted into a large meeting room that can seat up to 700 people -- perfect for large conferences, Snyder said.
Many lower-level rooms already have been converted to offices. Ivy Tech plans to relocate many administrative offices and the entire work-force development staff of three dozen, which now leases space a few blocks to the north in the IMG Building.
Stouffer's Indianapolis Inn housed many celebrities who came to town to perform at the nearby State Fairgrounds.
Glen Campbell's stay was marked by fans bringing him bowls of banana pudding (after word got out that he was a big fan), and Dolly Parton was remembered as a quiet guest who did not talk to many of the hotel staffers, according to newspaper accounts.
Elvis Presley stayed at the hotel on the night he performed at Market Square Arena, his last concert ever. Gergeni said Elvis stayed on the 11th floor. Snyder hinted that the school might put up a plaque to mark the historic connection.
Eventually, Downtown hotels began to modernize, and much of the entertainment shifted to venues such as the Hoosier Dome and the Indiana Convention Center. Stouffer's changed management and was renamed the Sheraton-Meridian in 1981. After years of declining business, it was renamed the Meridian Inn before it was finally foreclosed in 1989.
It sat vacant for four years before being sold to the Institute in Basic Life Principles.
Now, the building will be known as the Indiana Center for Workforce Solutions.
Mayor Greg Ballard said the center will play a key role in sustaining the region as a center of economic activity.
"Cultivating a well-educated, well-trained work force is critical to our continued success in attracting new jobs and investment, and the Lilly Endowment gift that makes this center possible will improve Ivy Tech's capacity to pair Hoosiers with opportunities for education and careers," Ballard said in a prepared statement.
The facility makes three construction projects at the Fall Creek campus. The others are a $10.4 million parking facility and academic building at 27th and Illinois streets and a $39.5 million classroom building on the site of the former St. Vincent Hospital on Fall Creek Parkway.
Renovation of the old hotel, Snyder said, could take three to four years.
Restaurants employ 293,100 people in Indiana, about 10 percent of the state's employment. Several categories within the hospitality sector are expected to grow at a rate of 15 percent per year or higher, according to the National Restaurant Association.
The interest in culinary arts, evident in large audiences for TV shows hosted by celebrity chefs, isn't confined to Ivy Tech.
About 430 students are enrolled at The Chef's Academy, a culinary division of Harrison College that opened in 2006. The Art Institute of Indianapolis has about 450 students; its culinary program was launched in 2007.
Educators have seen increasing interest in food-related fields, said Tony Hanslits, the national dean of The Chef's Academy, which broke ground last month on a second academy, in Morrisville, N.C.
Hanslits said that, beyond restaurants, students with culinary degrees also work in hotels and health-care facilities and in research and development for food companies.
"There's definitely the appeal from TV," Hanslits said, "but it's a great field to be in."
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