A half billion dollar health care/sports development proposed by a local start-up developer at the site of the old Indianapolis airport terminal won't get a green light this week when the Indianapolis Airport Authority's board meets this week as earlier news reports indicated. Airport board chairman Kelly Flynn cited discussions he has had with Mayor Joe Hogsett in an e-mail to other board members according to the IBJ for delaying action on the proposal. "In conversations with the mayor�s office, it has become clear that in order for us to be successful in putting this land back on the tax rolls, we need to take a step back," Flynn wrote to other airport board members.
Some might think Hogsett's trepidation over the proposal is the developer's lack of a track record, but the real reason for his concern is based on that proposed 18,000-seat soccer stadium and the developer's plan to pursue attracting a major league soccer team to Indianapolis to play there. That proposal has Indy Eleven owner Ersal Ozdemir's head spinning. Ozdemir is seeking public financing for a downtown stadium for his minor league soccer stadium. If Athlete's Business Network went forward with its soccer stadium deal, that would dash Ozdemir's dreams of a publicly-financed stadium downtown for his Indy Eleven.
As you would only know from reading this blog, as U.S. Attorney, Hogsett blocked a public corruption probe of Ozdemir, and he has appointed people with very close ties to Ozdemir to key positions in his administration. Specifically, he blocked a probe into the misuse of federal grant money awarded to the City of Indianapolis that the corrupt Ballard administration funneled into Ozdemir-owned projects. Hogsett's efforts to block the ABN deal has much more to do about assuaging Ozdemir than it has to do with his concerns about the viability of ABN's proposal.
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