Broadway Urban Homes, Indianapolis, IN

Type: Multifamily Condominium, 5 Units
Role: Design Architect - Beyond Architecture
Status: Unbuilt

Broadway Urban Homes sits at one of the more demanding sites in Indianapolis — a triangular property at the edge of Broad Ripple Village, adjacent to the White River canal, surrounded simultaneously by a CVS, new mixed-use retail structures, and blocks of small bungalows that define the Warfleigh neighborhood's residential character. The design had to be two things simultaneously: urban enough for the canal and bold enough for Broad Ripple, quiet enough not to overwhelm the houses behind it. It succeeds by being genuinely different on each facade — not as a compromise, but as an architectural response to the dual conditions of the site.

The canal-facing elevation speaks the language of the Village: three stories of curtain glazing, bold orange panel cladding, open metal railings at the balcony levels, a scale and energy that reads as a confident extension of the district it fronts. The neighborhood facade uses the same vocabulary differently — lower, warmer, the massing stepping down toward bungalow scale with natural stone and wood siding replacing the urban expressiveness of the water side. The triangular lot, rather than constraining the project, gives the building a footprint that reads as site-specific — a shape earned by the property rather than imposed on it.

For $1.5 million and five condominium units at 13,550 square feet, the project delivers something unusual in multifamily development: every residence has a view worth having. The siting along the southern canal edge puts all units in relationship with the water and the Broad Ripple district across it. Broadway Urban Homes is what urban infill looks like when the site is understood as an asset rather than a problem to be solved.