The conversion on the block
Gershman Partners and Citimark are converting the 20-storey Gold Building at 151 N. Delaware St. into apartments. IBJ reported the plan on 7 May 2024 with 354 units and a cost of about $200 million for the conversion and the adjacent Ohio Street parking garage.
The same report puts the firms' earlier cost estimate at $120 million. The tower keeps its frame. The first phase replaces the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Units run from studios to three-bedrooms. The gold facade becomes a silver tone with new window panelling. DKGR is the architect, and the joint venture was selected in June 2022.
The record disagrees on the unit count. IBJ's report of 17 September 2025 reads more than 350 apartments and nearly 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. IndyStar's report of 18 June 2026 reads more than 300 apartments. The unit mix, the rents and the income-restricted share are unpublished.
Part of the units goes to lower-income households. The city attached that condition to the tax-increment incentives, per IBJ's May 2024 report.
The offices that emptied first
IBJ's September 2025 report describes 400,000 square feet of office space leaving the building, and the firms have been weighing updates to it since early 2020. Their plans moved from office renovations to multifamily and retail as the pandemic reshaped downtown demand, per the same report.
The weekday base the block gains
Households produce room nights on weekdays. Residents host visiting family, work nearby and eat close to home. Family occasions, relocations, medical visits and project rotations each put people into the hotels around the block.
The Gold Building sits 128 metres from the Aloft at 136 E. Market St. and 168 metres from the Home2 Suites on North Pennsylvania Street. Both figures are straight-line from the building's OpenStreetMap position. The Hilton Garden Inn is 235 metres away, Hotel Indy 318 metres, the Sheraton City Centre 398 metres and the Conrad 512 metres. The Indiana Convention Center sits 1,069 metres away and Gainbridge Fieldhouse 624 metres.
The leasing schedule decides the timing. No page publishes a lease-up start, a first move-in date or an occupancy target for the conversion.
Who eats downstairs
Ground-floor retail turns residents into daytime spend. IBJ's May 2024 report puts the retail at about 9,000 square feet, and its September 2025 report puts the figure at nearly 8,000. No tenant is published. The restaurants already trading on Market Street and Delaware Street carry that trade today.
The City Market sits 87 metres from the Gold Building. Two outdoor pieces join the block: Whistler Plaza on the market's west side and the Wabash Alley walkway that splits the block between the Gold Building and the City Market properties. The Department of Metropolitan Development entered a $15.3 million contract with The Hagerman Group for the plaza work in late 2025, and the plaza is due to open by the end of 2027 on the city's account.
What the financing still owes
The Metropolitan Development Commission approved the city's $18 million bridge loan on 17 September 2025 by a vote of 8-0, with no discussion. The city pays the developers a lump sum that goes to First Financial to clear the original 2019 mortgage, and the city then holds the debt. The loan carries 7 per cent interest.
The agreement lets the city withdraw the offer if the developers do not secure construction funding. It requires monthly meetings with the developers' financial partners, the Department of Metropolitan Development and Indianapolis Economic Development Inc. It gives the city a right to foreclose on the Gold Building and the other north-block properties if the financing plan fails after the loan is paid.
Carmel-based Merchants Bank provides the construction loan, and local developer Milhaus has signed on as an equity and development partner, per IBJ's September 2025 report.
Gershman told IBJ in May 2024 that the firm hoped to finalise terms with the city by the end of that summer and to break ground in the early autumn. Work has not started. The city had earmarked $18.8 million in tax-increment financing for the first and second phases, per the May 2024 report. The second phase covers the City Market improvements, the demolition of the market's east wing and an 11-storey, 60-unit apartment tower in its place.
The figures to ask for
A revenue forecast for the block needs six unpublished items: the unit mix and the income-restricted share, the rents, the retail tenants and their opening dates, the lease-up schedule, the residential manager and the terms the city attaches to the bridge loan.