⛵️ Measuring Xmas

Good Friday Morning. This is Fishers Digest. The local newsletter that wants to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas weekend.

🌧️ Today's weather: Scattered showers, with a high near 49°.
🌧️ Christmas Day: Rainy, with a high near 57°.

In today’s digest:

• District South updates

• Fishers 🤝 Carmel

• How to entertain your guests this weekend

• Weekend preview

P.S. - There will be one more “year-end” digest for 2023 later next week. It’s been an amazing year with you all!

This issue is 1,359 words, a 4.5-minute read.

The Digest

District South

One big thing: In early 2025 the District South project will start welcoming tenants.

Where will it be? It’s located 2 blocks south of 116th street in Downtown Fishers. Behind the First Internet Bank building.

Everything from apartments, small business, and commercial office space will be there. Here’s a breakdown:

• 5 multi-use buildings

• Each building will be 3-4 stories tall

• 82 apartments

• ~8,000 square ft. of small business space

• ~20,000 square ft. of office space for Annex Group. Who expects to bring over 80 full-time employees with an average salary of $94,000.

The goal is to be a walkable and bike-friendly neighborhood. They’ll have direct access to Cheeney Creek Trail and the Nickel Plate Trail.

Why now: On Monday, the city extended the date for financing the $32.5 million project. On Wednesday, the Nickel Plate Review committee met to discuss the building designs. So you could say it’s been a hot topic this week.

🎄 Christmas Trees Farms per Capita

This is somehow a real stat used to determine how Christmas a city in America is. Some of these metrics used to determine the rankings are pretty outrageous. Here’s a few:

• Christmas spirit

• Ice skating rinks per capita

• Christmas tree farms per capita

• Google search interest for “Christmas Celebration”

Indianapolis came in 44th. Not bad! And here’s another fun fact, the Christmas tree industry is a 2-billion-dollar industry.

Fishers 🤝 Carmel

A bridge is being built to connect two parks. Hazel Landing Park and Heritage Park at White River. Construction will begin in early 2024 and end sometime mid 2025. The majority of the $11m bridge is being funded by Carmel. Fishers is contributing around 15% of the cost.

Sad news for coffee lovers

A Biggby Coffee drive-thru in Fishers is still just a dream. The landowner wanted to build the shop on land that was smaller than what Fishers allows for commercial space.

If you want to learn more and see a few other shops coming to Fishers over the next year, check out a previous issue here.

Do you know Max from the grinch? 🐶 

Every family deserves a dog like Max in the fam. Loyal, funny, up for anything. If you’re planning on surprising the fam with a new member, there’s no better place than Humane Society of Hamilton County. They’re one of the only no-kill shelters in the country and have plenty of dogs (and others!) to choose from.

And this weekend only, you’ll be sent home with a special Paws and Claus Stocking.

Instead of running a premium ad in this slot, we wanted to give this section to an org we care about this Christmas. For free. Please support them if you can ❤️ 

The Happenings

Weekend preview 📆 - Entertain your people edition

Have friends or family visiting? Getting together this weekend? Here’s a few ideas to entertain both you and your guests this weekend:

💡Go see Christmas lights. You can use this map to plot out your route through Fishers and Hamilton County. There’s also a drive-thru Christmas Night of Lights at the State Fair. And amazingly, still tickets available all weekend for Winterfields lights.

🎄 You can’t go wrong with the number 1 holiday market in America. The last day for the Christkindlmarkt is Christmas Eve. Here’s just a few of the things to do.

✅ Beer on tap
✅ Collectibles
✅ German inspired shopping
✅ Live music

🍽️ Eat out on Christmas. But what’s open on Christmas? I’m glad you asked. I created a guide to dining, drinks, and more over Christmas. It’s not a long list, but here it is!

⛸️ Go ice skating at the Bicentennial Unity Plaza. Tickets for Christmas start at 1 pm. There’s also the Fishers Fuel Tank. Both options are indoors and safe from the rainy day.

🏢 Visit the Eiteljorg Museum’s classic, Jingle Rails. 9 different model trains are set-up in varying landscapes. Must see if you’re a fan of model trains.

🍷 For 21+, the two best holiday pop-ups in ALL of greater Indy are here in Fishers. Whoville at the HC is a recreation of a classic. And Winzer Wonderland at Daniel’s Vineyard.

🩰 For the sophisticated, Louis Litt, types - see the Indy Ballet’s abbreviated version of the Nutcracker. There’s also a recreation of Elf as a musical in Carmel.

Weekend Sports

Magic @ Pacers Saturday 6 pm

Colts @ Falcons on Sunday 12 pm

Pacers @ Rockets Tuesday 7 pm

🎶 Live Music

Friday
Touch of Grass | Wolfies Geist
Stella Luna | Ale Emporium | 8:30 pm
Hill & Oaks | Parks Place Pub | 8 pm
Jambox | Britton Tavern | 10 pm

Saturday
Why Store | Ale Emporium | 8:30 pm
Mike + The Boys | Murphy’s Pubhouse | 9 pm
Billy and The Tall Boys | Britton Tavern | 10 pm

Reminder: file your tax exemptions*

Rapid Fire Hits

Quick headlines and things to know from all around 🌐 

💥 SOLD! First order of business is to BLOW THE MF ROOF OFF. Hendricks Commerical Properties (the people who did Bottleworks) bought the Circle Centre Mall. They plan to turn the mall into an open-air pedestrian area with restaurants, apartments, and office space. Roofs are so 2010. (link)

📈 The Winter Solstice (aka the shortest day of the year) was yesterday, which means our days are up only from here!

The HSE Royals secured their 13th consecutive Mudsock title over Fishers. 28-25.

🤘 Rock out with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra next Tuesday. They’ll be playing at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for two different shows as part of their “Ghosts of Christmas Eve” tour. Pick up tickets here.

The government tracks us all, even Santa. Here’s the yearly Santa tracker from NORAD.

😂 The story for why NORAD tracks Santa like this in the first place is legendary. In the 50’s, a magazine advertisement listed a number to call Santa. The number printed was one digit off, and children started calling the Continental Air Defense Command. They were cool about it and thought the idea was fun. So they made it a real thing!

Extras

Check out Luke Cathcart, the independent insurance agent who works for you. By working with many different carriers, he’s able to get you the best rate for you and your family. (link)* This is a sponsored listing.

🥂The countdown is here for New Year’s Eve. This is a personal invitation to the Glitter Gala, a disco-themed party to ring in 2024. Buy your tickets here (link). This is a sponsored listing.

Weekly recap

Here’s what readers clicked the most last week 🏆️

• Complete overview of the new Fishers Freight team (link)

• The Grinch is arrested by Fishers police (link)

• Two Chicks and a Hammer are coming to Noblesville (link)

• Nordstrom Rack coming to HTC (link)

• How to deal with new I-69/I-465 changes (link)

Construction This Next Week

Since there is no Digest next Tuesday, here’s your construction update and things you should know for next week.

• On Tuesday (Dec 26), Lantern Road will be one lane only between 9 and 3 pm.

• The Hoosier Road roundabout is still closed but should be open by the end of the year. However, “clean-up” work will go into spring of next year. It’s not defined what this really means.

Read the full report here.

Thanks!

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If you found something useful, please share this with a loved one you’re spending time with this weekend.

If you made it this far, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Please stay safe, stay warm, and be kind 🤙 See you later next week.