Read time: 7 min.

Just east of Irvington’s carefully preserved core, a sprawling, worn-down shopping center sits quietly along Washington Street. Irvington Plaza doesn’t fit the story its neighborhood tells today, but it once did. Long before the vacancies and the slow decline, the center was one of Indianapolis’s most ambitious retail destinations.

Irvington was founded as a suburb of Indianapolis in 1870. The quiet community five miles west of downtown was laid out along winding roads. Artists, politicians, academics, and industry heads moved there¹, as did Butler University, which remained in Irvington until 1928². 

Indianapolis annexed the town in 1902, and the 545-acre Irvington Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Today, nearly eighty percent of Irvington’s houses date to before 1960³! It’s a charming area with an old masonic lodge, a theater, a number of historic apartments, boutique shops, and a gentrifying core along Washington Street. I have friends who live there; I like Irvington a lot.

The crumbling Irvington Plaza sits in marked contrast to the rest of the community. Believe it or not, though, the strip mall has been there for more than seventy years! By the time developer C.B. Durham set his sights on the site⁴, a whopping 175,000 people lived within a twenty minute drive⁵ from the nearby cloverleaf at Washington Street and Shadeland Avenue.

It’s hard to believe today, but Irvington Plaza wasn’t just another strip mall when it opened- it was one of the largest and most modern shopping centers in Indianapolis. Construction unfolded in stages: first, a row of stores rose along the north side, followed by a second wave stretching nearly halfway down the property. A final phase filled in the rest. By the time it was complete, the $3.5 million development boasted fifty stores lined by wide, covered sidewalks designed to keep shoppers comfortable in any weather⁶.

Irvington Plaza’s first stores were a 25,000-square-foot Atlas Supermarket and a 7,000-square-foot Atlas department store; a 15,000-square-foot Kroger; the Flamingo restaurant; National Jewelry Company; Fran’s Tot Shop; Progress Laundry; Marrott Shoe Store; Haag Drug; Omar Bakery; Haugh’s Hardware; Schiff’s Shoes; and Dayan’s Junior Department Store⁷. 

A self-service discount store called Shopper’s Fair opened in a new addition to the west in 1957⁸. A final expansion occurred in 1961 when the 32-lane Plaza Bowl -later the Play Bowl- was completed⁹. An outparcel Dairy Queen between the Shopper’s Fair and the bowling alley opened around the same time. 

Kroger burned in 1966 but eventually reopened¹⁰. Meanwhile, other changes came to the plaza over the years: the Flamingo became the Torch Restaurant and Lounge¹¹ in the 1960s. Nation-Wise Auto Parts expanded into Indy at the plaza in 1970¹². Shopper’s Fair closed by 1974 and its space was taken over by Kayak Pools and Cloth World¹³. Kroger closed in 1979¹⁴, the same year Marsh Supermarket opened in the old Shopper’s Fair space¹⁵. 

When I first visited around 2013, the west side of Irvington Plaza was still hanging on with a familiar mix of national chains and everyday essentials: EZPAWN, Aaron’s Rent to Own, Little Caesars, Marsh, and Dairy Queen. The old bowling alley had been repurposed into a flea market in a sign of shifting times. The original section told a different story. Much of it sat empty, but there were still pockets of life like Dollar General, a barber shop, a dentist’s office, the D.A.V. store, H&R Block, a smoke shop, and a laundromat. 

Even so, the rest of Irvington Plaza continued its slow fade. The turning point came in 2017, when Marsh closed its doors amid the company’s bankruptcy. The loss left a massive void at the heart of the center. By 2019, what remained was a patchwork of survivors- a Mexican restaurant, Discount Tobacco, Oak Street Health, the barber shop, and H&R Block. I think the flea market still hung on, too. 

Unfortunately, the decline didn’t stop there and Dairy Queen shuttered in 2024¹⁶. Still, hope arrived in the form of a former IU football player who purchased the property with plans for a $150 million redevelopment with residential units, new retail, and a Needler’s Fresh Market¹⁷! Before those plans could take shape, though, disaster struck: in 2025, the abandoned Marsh caught fire in a conflagration¹⁸ that added one more chapter to the plaza’s complicated story.

The ruined Marsh was where the Needler’s was intended to go. Despite the crushing blows, though, the property’s new owner still has big plans for Irvington Plaza. They involve keeping the storefronts facing Washington Street, removing the old bowling alley/flea market, demolishing the stores beyond the barber shop, and building new housing on the south portion of the site adjacent to the Pennsy Trail. That seems like a tall order. 

Irvington Plaza has spent more than seven decades reflecting the community around it as a bold, forward-looking shopping center, then as a workhorse of everyday retail, and now as something closer to a question mark. It’s easy to look at what’s left and see only the decline.

Now, it stands at a familiar crossroads where mid-century retail meets twenty-first century reality. The plans on the table are ambitious, maybe even daunting, but so was Irvington Plaza when it first rose from an empty corner of Washington Street. Whether the next chapter brings demolition, reinvention, or something in between, the moribund site isn’t done yet. 

Sources Cited
1 Taflinger, N. (2007, May 31). Movin’ on up. INTake [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved April 4, 2026. 
2 Waller, G. M. (2006). Butler University: A Sesquicentennial History. Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. Book. 
3 UP CLOSE: IRVINGTON (2007). The Indianapolis Star. Web. Retrieved April 4, 2026. 
4 Rezoning Sought At Nora For New Shopping Centers (1954, December 2). The Indianapolis Star. p. 2. 
5 40 Firms To Occupy 22 Acres (1954, March 28). The Indianapolis Star. p. 1. 
6 Irvington Plaza Jubilee Has Gala Opening (1955, May 11). The Indianapolis News. p. 22. 
7 (See footnote 5).
8 Self-Service ‘Fair’ to Open in Irvington (1957, November 6). The Indianapolis News. p. 49. 
9 Two New Plants to House 80 Lanes (1961, April 14). The Indianapolis News. p. 18. 
10 Shopping Center Fires Cause Heavy Losses (1966, March 28). The Indianapolis Star. p. 27. 
11 Burglars Get $4,500 In Cash From Tavern (1966, April 18). The Indianapolis Star. p. 11. 
12 Automotive Sales (1970, February 4). The Indianapolis Star. p. 39. 
13 Salzarulo, F. (1976, August 26). Discount Retailers Bend With Times. The Indianapolis News. p. 37. 
14 Public Auction (1979, January 7). The Indianapolis Star. p. 71. 
15 Indiana Business (1979, August 29). The Indianapolis Star. p. 34. 
16 Jackson, C.V. (2024, October 4). Irvington Dairy Queen closed. Owner says, ‘I’m going to enjoy retirement.’ The Indianapolis Star. Web. Retrieved April 2, 2026. 
17 McQuaid, R. (2026, February 9). Former IU football star buys Irvington Plaza for redevelopment. FOX59 [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved April 2, 2026. 
18 McQuaid, R. (2025, February 3). Developer says fire won’t set back Irvington Plaza plans. FOX59 [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved April 2, 2026. 
19 (See footnote 18).