Neuroscience Site Proposed

By Jeff Swiatek, The Indianapolis Star

Mar. 29–Clarian Health Partners and Indiana University School of Medicine are eyeing a site at 16th Street and Senate Avenue for a neuroscience medical complex that would include the state-run Larue D. Carter Memorial Hospital for psychiatric patients.

The site, across from the entrance to Methodist Hospital’s emergency room, currently contains a parking lot and an IU family-medicine practice.

The practice’s one-story offices would be leveled to clear way for the neuroscience campus, said Dr. D. Craig Brater, dean of the school of medicine, on Wednesday.

The practice’s offices, which see 12,000 patients, would be rebuilt nearby, he said.

It’s the first time a specific site for the proposed neuroscience complex has been mentioned by any of the three partners involved in the project. Publicly revealed details have remained sketchy while funding is still being lined up.

The neuroscience campus, which state and local medical officials have talked about for more than a year, is shaping up to be a three-building complex. Besides the hospital, the project would include a $50 million, 160,000-square-foot research building for the medical school and a medical office building owned by Clarian, Brater said.

“This would be the only comprehensive neuroscience cluster I am aware of in the country,” Brater said.

The site, on the south side of 16th Street, is adjacent to Clarian’s people-mover tram, which ferries passengers between Methodist and the medical campus and hospitals at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

In January, the state put out a request for proposals to rebuild the psychiatric hospital somewhere near the school of medicine.

The psychiatric hospital in the 2600 block of Cold Spring Road operates in a former veterans hospital that has become costly and inefficient to run.

Brater said the new complex, besides improving service to patients, would be a magnet for psychiatric researchers. “It would be great for retaining and attracting new faculty,” he said.

IU is seeking permission in the current session of the state legislature to issue construction bonds for the research building.

If legislative approval is given, groundbreaking could occur within a year, Brater said.

The $100 million psychiatric hospital, containing more than 100 beds, would take three years to build.

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