Construction crews have placed the final structural steel on a new education building rising on Indianapolis's North College Avenue campus, marking a major milestone in the $655 million project to co-locate the Indiana School for the Deaf with the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Gov. Mike Braun announced the achievement as the two state schools inch closer to sharing a single, purpose-built campus for the first time in their histories.
The new education building will stand more than four stories tall and span about 267,000 square feet once finished, according to WTHR. It is just one of several structures going up as part of the broader co-location effort, which also calls for six new buildings, four building renovations, and stabilization work on three additional service buildings that could see future use.
“Indiana's future depends on how we educate the next generation,” Braun said, per the station's report. The governor's office indicated the overall campus is designed to give students at both schools a modern learning environment built around their needs, while also equipping teachers and staff with better tools and resources to help students succeed.
A Campus Built Around Two Very Different Sets of Needs
Rather than a one-size-fits-all design, the new campus is being shaped specifically around students who are deaf or hard of hearing and students who are blind or have low vision, incorporating acoustics, visibility, wayfinding, tactile elements, and color contrast into the architecture. That approach echoes reporting from Mirror Indy, which detailed how educators pushed for features like dimmable lighting for light-sensitive students and high-contrast floor patterns to help with low-vision navigation, going well beyond standard ADA compliance.
The full development is expected to occupy 67 acres near the existing ISBVI campus around 75th Street and College Avenue. Plans call for new residence halls, a fieldhouse, and the conversion of the property's existing natatorium into a dining hall — shared infrastructure meant to serve both student populations even as each school retains its own tailored spaces.
How the Price Tag Nearly Tripled
When the project was first announced in 2022, it carried an estimated price tag of $225 million. By 2025, that figure had grown to $655 million, backed by $465 million in state appropriations, according to Mirror Indy's budget reporting. The outlet noted that early estimates leaned on 2021 pandemic-era capital project funding before the full scope of the design expanded.
That same year the co-location site was chosen, the state also announced a separate $35 million, approximately 130,000-square-foot State Archives building along the Central Canal downtown, part of the same roughly $1 billion capital package, as reported by WFYI.
Groundbreaking, Demolition, and a Temporary Campus
State leaders and school officials broke ground on the co-location campus on August 8, 2024, according to WFYI, with building abatement and demolition getting underway that October. Site clearing across the 67-acre property preceded the heavy framing work that has now produced the topped-off education building.
During the construction process, students from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired have been temporarily relocated to a former public school at 2701 N. Devon Ave. on Indianapolis's Far Eastside for the 2024–2025 school year, per Mirror Indy's local reporting. The temporary site required retrofitting to accommodate low-vision accessibility needs while the North College Avenue campus undergoes major construction.
Preserving Distinct Identities While Sharing a Campus
The idea of combining the two schools was not always welcomed. Early proposals floated in 2019 and 2020 drew formal opposition from advocacy groups including the Indiana Association of the Deaf, which raised concerns about losing distinct cultural identities, according to the Deaf Vee Journal. A legislative task force ultimately evaluated shared-plant models before state officials committed to maintaining separate operational structures for each institution.
The Indiana School for the Deaf traces its roots to 1843, when it was founded by William Willard, the first Deaf person in America to establish a state deaf school. In 2020, the school was described as serving 350 students and children from newborn age through 12th grade. It has occupied its 42nd Street campus since 1911, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. The Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired serves more than 100 students from across Indiana. It has been based at its North College Avenue site since 1930, per background from IN.gov.
An Early Sign of Shared Operations
Even before the two schools share physical buildings, they have already begun collaborating operationally. A $231,000 track resurfacing project between the schools installed a specialized string track with guide ropes for visually impaired runners, a project executed through an expedited state procurement contract that went on to win a national Job Order Contracting Award of Merit in August, according to a release distributed via GlobeNewswire.
Students and staff from both schools are slated to officially move into the completed campus in the summer of 2028, ahead of the 2028–2029 fall academic term, according to state government planning documents. The governor's office has indicated substantial completion is expected by spring 2028, setting up a multi-year transition that will finally bring both century-old institutions under one roof while preserving what makes each of them distinct.
