The following teaser is from ibj.com:
Indiana officials plan to build a $35 million facility for containing the state’s voluminous archives on the near-east side of Indianapolis after a years-long search for a compatible site.
The 50,000-square-foot building would be constructed at 2010 E. New York St. on the former site of the Indiana Women’s Prison in a largely residential neighborhood, according to a request for proposals issued by the state’s Department of Administration.
The request for proposals is intended for securing a construction manager for the project, but it spells out the general parameters of the facility. Construction could start as soon as fall 2022.
Bob Grossman, director of the department of administration’s public works division, declined to comment on the project beyond the information contained in the RFP.
The location of the archives has been a hot-button topic for years. A critical mass of the state’s records and artifacts of interest has been located for two decades at a simple, pole-barn-style facility at 6440 E. 30th St.
The archive includes the original state constitutions, slave records, all of the state’s laws and Supreme Court decisions, as well as popular items like prison records of John Dillinger and his associates.
While the constitutions are in a vault, the rest of the building lacks proper climate control, a situation that officials have said probably has taken 100 years off the life of the documents.
The state moved its archives out to the east-side warehouse in 2001 as a temporary measure to accommodate renovations to the State Library. Archivists and researchers have been advocating for years to put them in an appropriate building.
Read the full article at: https://www.ibj.com/articles/state-planning-35m-archives-building-on-indianapolis-near-east-side