The City of Indianapolis has successfully developed and financed a new justice center, known as the Community Justice Campus, which will house a new jail, courthouse and an assessment and intervention center. Our firm served as legal counsel for the City of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank and Mayor Joe Hogsett’s Criminal Justice Reform Task Force on all aspects of the center, which will deliver resources, programs and facilities aligned with criminal justice reform.
Built on a brownfields site, the campus will unite Indianapolis’s criminal justice facilities — the county jail, courts and sheriff’s office — in one complex. It will also include an assessment and intervention center — separate from the jail and courthouse — that provides mental health, substance abuse and social service evaluations for persons released from or diverted from the jail. These resources are designed to provide the treatment and services offenders and other vulnerable citizens need to succeed outside of the criminal justice system, reduce recidivism and advance Mayor Hogsett’s stated goal of creating a community-oriented facility that “saves more lives than it detains.”
Our firm represented the City of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Bond Bank in its successful efforts to develop and pass financing measures for the center’s construction. The firm served as bond counsel for the consolidated Indianapolis and Marion County government in its sale of roughly $623 million in tax-exempt debt to fund the project. Indianapolis and Marion County will finance the construction of the center’s adult detention facility and courthouse through the sale of $610.5 million in 35-year, series A bonds. An additional $12.6 million of 20-year, series B bonds will finance an on-site assessment and intervention center. The bonds are secured by lease rental payments, which are backed by local income and property taxes, marking the first time Indianapolis has provided the revenue source to secure bond payments.
We also provided legal counsel on public health and safety, environmental and redevelopment, legislative, and procurement issues related to the development of this project, leading the procurement of more than $500 million using the design-build project delivery method.
