The walk-through stop the block is building
The City Market block is rebuilding its western outdoor space as Charles L. Whistler Memorial Plaza. The published design runs a pedestrian walkway through Wabash Alley. IndyStar’s account of the 17 June 2026 design update describes the walkway as splitting the block between the Gold Building and the City Market properties.
That split is the routing fact. A group crosses from the City Market side to the Gold Building side on foot.
Pickups, the stop and the drop
Straight-line distances from the City Market at 222 E. Market Street, measured on OpenStreetMap coordinates on 22 September 2026. Aloft at 136 E. Market Street sits 148 m away. Home2 Suites at 115 N. Pennsylvania Street sits 217 m. Hotel Indy at 141 E. Washington Street sits 267 m. The Hilton Garden Inn Indianapolis Downtown at 108 N. Pennsylvania Street sits 269 m. Those four are the pickup points inside 300 m.
The Indiana Convention Center at 100 S. Capitol Avenue is 1,068 m (0.66 mi) from the City Market, straight-line. The Gold Building at 151 N. Delaware Street holds the block’s north side.
A coach or a hotel shuttle drops the group. The group walks the block. A second vehicle collects it. The walkway is the car-free section of that sequence.
Where the walking leg reaches next
Richard G. Lugar Plaza at 200 E. Washington Street is 156 m (0.10 mi) south, measured on the same coordinates. The plaza is two acres, and it sits on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail in the Market East Cultural District. It carries downtown’s only interactive spray fountain, and its programs and events are free. Its posted rules bar bicycles, scooters and skates inside the plaza.
The Cultural Trail runs a free community group ride every Saturday afternoon from May through September. The No Spandex Required ride leaves trail headquarters at 132 W. Walnut Street at 1 p.m., runs two to two and a half hours, and takes one beverage stop. Registration is required, and the ride uses Pacers Bikeshare bikes. The trail also sells private biking tours and rides customized for any group or gathering.
What the construction fence means this season
The City Market building closed for repairs in March 2024. Underground work to surface the catacombs began in June 2026. The west wing comes down in the weeks after the city’s 17 June update. Merritt Chase records the first construction step as the removal of a 1970s building addition inside the plaza footprint.
Above-ground work closes parking spaces along Delaware and Market streets next to the plaza, to make room for construction equipment. That takes the kerbside space a coach would use on the block’s two frontages.
No published document sets a coach staging area, a loading zone or a pedestrian management plan for the block. Ask the Department of Metropolitan Development for all three before a coach is scheduled.
The catacombs as the hook
The catacombs are the basement of Tomlinson Hall. The hall opened on 2 June 1886, and its second floor held a 4,200-seat auditorium. A fire destroyed the building on 30 January 1958, and demolition that year left the 20,000-square-foot basement standing. The structure holds no crypts and no human remains.
The design daylights the brick arches and limestone columns as part of the plaza. The surviving west wing foundation becomes an overlook on the north side, and a section of the catacombs sits behind glass panels below it. Twenty trees go in for shade.
The catacombs have been opened for guided tours at various times. No tour date for the finished plaza appears in the accounts reviewed for this piece. Treat the descent as a request to the operator.
The dates an itinerary has to carry
Phase 1 opens by the end of 2027 on the city’s account. Merritt Chase dates the completed renovation to the fall of 2027. Phase 2 is the Market House, which operated as a food hall, and it carries no date. Board chair Craig Mince told the Indianapolis Business Journal that a 2028 reopening is no longer feasible. Department of Metropolitan Development Director Megan Vukusich told IndyStar that a reopening date is too early to tell.
Print the walk-through stop for the 2027 season at the earliest. Name the phase in the itinerary, and keep the catacombs as the stop to plan for on a later trip.