Indiana · Indianapolis
Indianapolis Feasibility Studies
Indianapolis asks a feasibility study to hold two records at once: an employer base documented down to the schedule, Indiana University Health alone at 26,200 employees on the 2024 roll HUD cites 1, and a set of 2025 and 2026 readings that softened while that base stood. Neither one describes a site. The study is therefore argued below the metro, at the submarket where the subject competes and the county line it sits on, with the buildings opening inside its drive time counted by name.
Eleven counties, one labor shed, several very different submarkets.
The Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood metropolitan area is eleven counties: Marion at the center, then Boone, Brown, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Madison, Morgan, Shelby and Tipton. This page covers all eleven: Marion County and the metro as a whole run through every section, and Hamilton, Boone and Hendricks, which grow fast enough to need a reading of their own, have the collar section. Statewide series are on the Indiana page.
The record points two ways, and a study carries both. The employer base is broad and documented: three hospital networks, Eli Lilly, an airport freight hub and building programs at two universities 1. The newest readings are weaker: apartment vacancy rose through 2025, market hotel occupancy slipped in the year to May 2025, the preliminary August 2026 payroll count fell short of August 2025 and the city has put data centers on hold. The sections below follow each thread to the submarket where a loan is made.
Health systems, Lilly and freight set the floor under demand.
Health care heads the employer schedule. Marion County's 2024 annual financial report, as HUD cites it, lists Indiana University Health at 26,200 employees, Ascension St. Vincent at 17,400 and Community Health Network at 16,300 1. Those schedules give medical office, urgent care, senior housing and workforce apartments near the main campuses a named employment base. They also bring competition: Community MD Anderson Cancer Center and Hendricks Regional Health both opened new facilities in 2025 1, so an independent clinic proposed near either needs its own patient-origin case. In the County Business Patterns class this site uses as a proxy for medical office and surgery-center tenants, the metro's counties held 1,259 establishments in 2023 23, the first list a medical office study's tenant survey works from (see our medical office and ASC page).
Eli Lilly appears twice in the record. The county schedule carries 12,500 Lilly employees 1; the company's own key facts count 13,583 in Indianapolis as of June 30, 2026, out of 51,168 worldwide 2. The two differ in date and scope, and a study says which it uses; the company's Boone County plant is taken up in the collar section. Indiana University Indianapolis employed 14,000 people in 2024 1, and the downtown campus is still building: HUD records a $138M biosciences building for IU Indianapolis and a $187M classroom, laboratory and housing building for Purdue University in Indianapolis under construction 1. The research does not state enrolment, so a student or faculty housing project downtown ties its lease-up to those dated buildings.
Freight is the third leg. FedEx employs 5,800 people at Indianapolis International Airport, its second-largest hub in the world 1. HUD counts 9 logistics firms that announced expansions in 2025, with up to 1,500 jobs expected by 2028, including 400 jobs at HarperCollins 1. Announced jobs are promises, not payroll, so a study for a warehouse, truck service or hotel that leans on them phases demand to the stated dates and tests the case with the announcements delayed.
Data centers are the newest and most contested driver. As of January 1, 2026, HUD counts $1.8B of Alphabet and Meta data center investment in the housing market area, a combined figure, with roughly 50 permanent jobs at each 1. Capital of that size buys a construction season of demand for lodging, food and equipment yards and very little lasting payroll, so a study books the construction phase against the developer's schedule and household growth only from the operator's stated permanent headcount. Meta's Lebanon campus, announced after HUD's count date, carries its own figure in the collar section, and the two are never added.
| Indianapolis anchor | Employees | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana University Health | 26,200 | 2024 | 1 |
| Ascension St. Vincent | 17,400 | 2024 | 1 |
| Community Health Network | 16,300 | 2024 | 1 |
| Indiana University Indianapolis | 14,000 | 2024 | 1 |
| Eli Lilly, Indianapolis (company count) | 13,583 | June 30, 2026 | 2 |
| FedEx at Indianapolis International Airport | 5,800 | 2024 | 1 |
Population keeps rising; the latest payroll reading does not.
Marion County grew 1.5% between 2020 and 2025 and added 1,983 people in the latest year 8, while the metro rate for the same five years in the table below is well above it 7. A drive-time area inside the county carries the county's rate, and one reaching into the collar takes each collar county's own rate only where it crosses. Marion County permits covered 1,342 residential units in 2025 9; with no metro permit total in the research, a study takes each trade-area county from the STATS Indiana permit database. The metro's share of the new apartment units Indiana permitted from January to August 2025 was 20% 11.
The table holds two metro definitions, STATS Indiana's profile and HUD's housing market area, with different base years and dates; a study prints one, says which, and takes every rate it quotes from it.
Payrolls have two published readings. HUD's 2025 average was 1.18 million nonfarm jobs, after a gain of 7,900 over the year 1. BLS's large-metro table then counts 1,182.1 thousand jobs in August 2026 on a preliminary basis, 12,600 fewer than the 1,194.7 thousand of August 2025, a change the bureau does not class as statistically significant 10. Both readings belong in the study, labelled as what they are, and the pro forma rests on neither the 2025 gain nor the 2026 dip alone. For the resident labor base, the ACS 2020-2024 estimates count a civilian labor force of 1,131,200 in the metro's counties 20, the pool a hiring-dependent project such as a distribution center or a hospital-adjacent clinic draws on.
For the 11-county metro, the 2020-2024 ACS estimates show 842,765 households, 279,600 of them renting, and a household median income of $79,852 20, the base a study sizes demand against. BEA's 2024 estimate puts personal income per head at $76,564 for the metro 21. That measure includes transfers and investment returns, so a store or restaurant sizes spending on trade-area household income and reads the BEA number only as a sign of the metro's wealth.
The collar: three growing counties and a wave of new supply.
North and west of Marion, three counties combine steady population gains, two large Boone County builds and an apartment pipeline running into 2027.
Hamilton County carries the collar's weight. QuickFacts counts 387,036 residents there in 2025, up 11.4% from 347,490 in 2020 25; STATS Indiana splits its latest year into net domestic migration of 4,121, net international migration of 1,602 and natural increase of 1,618 26, and a project selling to newcomers says which stream its customers come from. Boone County's 2.6% gain in 2025 was the fastest of any Indiana county, Hendricks added 1.4% 8, and an undated Wikipedia table of Census estimates sizes them at 80,689 and 193,510 people 27. Four Hamilton County cities are markets of their own, at 2025 estimates of 105,634 for Carmel, 104,812 for Fishers, 76,111 for Noblesville and 66,258 for Westfield 28. Childcare, clinic and family dining files there read growth tract by tract.
Boone County's case turns on two builds. HUD's analysis, as of January 1, 2026, carries Eli Lilly's $9 billion manufacturing project with up to 3,100 jobs 1. Meta announced its Lebanon campus, more than $10 billion and 1 GW, on February 11, 2026 and broke ground that day 29. Payrolls were rising before either: HUD reports 2,800 jobs added in Boone County from 2021 to 2023, 7.2% a year, and 9,500 in Hamilton County, 5.8% a year 1.
The collar's risk is new supply. Hamilton County issued permits for 4,146 residential units in 2025 30, and a May 2026 pipeline report names three apartment deliveries: 278 units in Noblesville due August 2026, 251 in Fishers due November 2026 and 288 in Whitestown, on the Boone side of the line, due January 2027 31. A collar apartment project underwritten now leases up against all three; with no collar vacancy, rent or pipeline total in the research, those buildings are its comparables, not the metro readings below.
Two suburban rental caps run on a clock. Carmel's Ordinance D-2770-25 keeps rental permits below 10% of the dwellings in a subdivision of ten or more lots, with registration in force from February 1, 2026 32, and Fishers set its limit at that share in April 2025 33. House Enrolled Act 1210 preempts both, and caps adopted before 2026 must comply by January 1, 2028 18; once the act was signed, Carmel dropped its suit enforcing short-term rental rules 34. A build-to-rent study in either city counts the capped homes as competition arriving by that date.
Demand by node: the airport, downtown and a campus in Morgan County.
The research locates demand by node rather than by road. The airport edge, with the FedEx hub's 5,800 workers 1, suits logistics, truck service and select-service hotels. Downtown, the convention district and the two university building programs concentrate hotel, restaurant and student-housing demand. In Morgan County near Monrovia, a 2026 project tracker lists Google's campus at $1B with 390 MW planned and building under way since 2026 6. Freight peaks overnight and conventions arrive in blocks of days, so a demand case names the node that feeds the subject and the hours and months it sends customers.
None of those nodes comes with a traffic count: the research names no interchange or commercial corridor and holds no INDOT count. A roadside study brings INDOT's count for the frontage, a turning count at the proposed driveway and hourly counts showing whether freight shifts and convention days pass while the site is open. Our fuel and convenience page sets out how a count becomes a capture rate.
Loose apartments, a hotel wave downtown and industrial that keeps absorbing.
Multifamily
Apartment vacancy has moved the wrong way. HUD, citing CoStar, reports multifamily vacancy of 11.2% in Q4 2025, up from 10.0% in Q4 2024, and overall rental vacancy of 11.0% in January 2026 against 9.5% in 2020 1. HUD counts 6,300 rental units under construction and estimates demand for 11,100 units over the next three years 1. For properties of 50 or more units, Kirkland's April 2026 report gives an average rent of $1,342, occupancy of 88.5% and 4,732 units under construction 12. The ACS median gross rent, $1,191 in the 2020-2024 estimates 20, measures what all renter households pay, utilities included, so it is never set against a new building's asking rent as if the two were the same thing.
The two construction counts cover different universes, HUD's every rental unit and Kirkland's only the larger properties, so a study says which one it sets against HUD's three-year demand. Vacancy climbed during 2025 even as those units were delivering, so lease-up paces from buildings that opened before 2025 may overstate what a 2026 or 2027 opening can expect. Our multifamily hub explains how to read absorption.
Hotels
Downtown is taking on a block of new rooms at once. The Signia by Hilton and the convention-center expansion together represent a $710M project, adding 143,500 sq ft of convention space plus a 50,000 sq ft ballroom 3. The research puts the Signia at 800 to 803 rooms across Visit Indy's page and an undated REBusinessOnline report 35; CoStar's July 2025 article gives the lower figure 4. Its opening date conflicts: Visit Indy anticipated December 2026 3, while CoStar reported March 2027 in its July 25, 2025 article 4. Visit Indy also lists the Motto in the King Cole Building, with 116 rooms, and a Kimpton in the Odd Fellows Building 3; an undated REBusinessOnline report 5 and an earlier Visit Indy post disagree on the Kimpton's rooms, so neither count is used here. In 2025 the InterContinental opened after a $120M renovation with 170 rooms, and a 128-room Aloft opened downtown 4. Demand had cooled first: in the year ending May 2025 metro occupancy slipped 1.3%, its first drop since the pandemic 4, and CBRE's Hotel Horizons forecast, as Hotel Management reports it, has supply growing roughly 1% to 3% a year over five years 13.
Location relative to the convention center sorts which of those facts govern a subject. A select-service hotel a short walk from the center may pick up overflow on the nights the Signia fills; a suburban property gains little and may lose group business to the new headquarters hotel. Either way the study runs break-even occupancy with the Signia's rooms open from the date it adopts, a test our break-even note explains. The hotel hub has more on the class.
Industrial
Industrial is still absorbing space. Bluebird CRE, using CoStar data, reports vacancy of 7.6%, 6.5 million sq ft under construction and 11.5 million sq ft of net absorption over the 12 months to Q1 2026 14. Absorption well ahead of construction supports owner-user and small-bay projects, but a speculative building still needs its own tenant evidence, since the research gives the metro total with no split by building size.
Classes without published figures
Retail, senior housing, storage, campgrounds and fuel have no metro performance series in the research: no retail vacancy, senior occupancy or storage supply per resident, and no count of RV parks, campgrounds or fuel stations. Senior housing shows the widest distance between demand and measured supply: the ACS counts 312,612 residents aged 65 or over in its 2020-2024 estimates 20, with no published occupancy to show how well the existing communities serve them. A study in any of these classes surveys the competitors in its trade area by name; the self-storage and assisted living hubs set out the method.
| Indianapolis supply measure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment units under construction, 50+ unit properties | 4,732 | April 2026 | 12 |
| Average apartment rent, 50+ unit properties | $1,342 | April 2026 | 12 |
| Multifamily vacancy (CoStar via HUD) | 11.2% | Q4 2025 | 1 |
| Rental units under construction (HUD) | 6,300 | January 1, 2026 | 1 |
| HUD three-year rental demand estimate | 11,100 units | From January 1, 2026 | 1 |
| Industrial space under construction | 6.5 million sq ft | Q1 2026 | 14 |
| Industrial vacancy | 7.6% | Q1 2026 | 14 |
A data center freeze, county lodging taxes and a new state limit on rental rules.
Indianapolis has stopped new data center construction through December 31, 2027, a halt the Metropolitan Development Commission ratified on August 19, 2026 17. The halt is the city's: Google's Monrovia campus lies in Morgan County, outside it. Inside the city, any demand case that counted on future campuses loses them until 2028 at the earliest.
An undated secondary summary citing the state revenue department's bulletin puts the Marion County innkeeper's tax at 10%, for 17% combined with the state's sales tax 15. Across the line, Hendricks County's own undated page sets its rate at 8% 35, the same summary gives Hamilton County that rate too 15, and Boone County's adopted rate is not in the research. The department's own table did not render for the research, so room revenue is set net of taxes only after each county's rate is read there, and a short-stay product near a county line is priced against rivals at their county's rate.
State law now limits what the city can do about rentals. House Enrolled Act 1210 bars local governments from capping rental properties and reshapes how they regulate short-term rentals 18; the collar section gives the compliance date the Carmel and Fishers caps face. The city's own rules that a short-stay or single-family rental project would meet were beyond the research and appear in the closing list.
SBA lending in the eleven counties, and the names behind it.
SBA's loan-level file is the lending record that follows this metro's county lines. It credits the 11 counties' borrowers with 5,238 7(a) approvals, together $2,025.9 million, from fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, leaving out loans later cancelled 22. Because the file codes each loan by borrower county and industry, a study can say how many 7(a) loans have gone to the subject's kind of business in its county, which is a firmer base than any lender list.
For lender names the research has two narrower sources. GoSBA Loans, which ranks lenders from SBA data, lists the city's 2025 7(a) leaders by dollars: Huntington with $16.6M on 67 loans, Northwest Bank with $10.0M on two and KeyBank with $8.7M on six 16. With Northwest Bank's total resting on two loans, one large credit can move a bank on or off the list, which shows who closed inside the city in 2025, not who lends in the subject's county or asset class. First Internet Bank, headquartered in the metro, ranked among the country's largest 7(a) lenders by fiscal 2025 dollars on Coleman Report's list 19. How a 7(a) or 504 file is reviewed is set out under SBA 7(a) and 504 lending.
An agency apartment loan here meets a market HUD analysed as of January 2026 1, so the study reconciles its absorption with HUD's three-year demand estimate or explains the difference (our conventional and institutional page covers that review). A convention-district hotel or mixed-use project raising EB-5 capital also needs a job count the study can support.
USDA, Opportunity Zones and HUBZones in the metro.
The research reads USDA's Business and Industry population test as excluding Indianapolis, Carmel and Fishers and the urbanized area contiguous with them, although it cites no USDA source for that threshold, and it resolved nothing at parcel level. A sponsor in the outer counties, Brown, Tipton and Shelby among them, or in the rural parts of Morgan or Madison, should therefore confirm the site on USDA's own eligibility map before the lender picks a program; the program in general is set out under USDA Rural Development.
Opportunity Zone tracts and HUBZone areas were not listed for the metro either. Both turn on the exact census tract and change what capital and contract preference a project can use, so the closing list asks for the tract's dated status.
Worked cases for this market.
This site's one Indiana worked case, self-storage under SBA 504, is a representative, anonymized example: new climate-controlled storage built from bare ground and financed through 504. It demonstrates the method rather than this market's numbers, and where a case figure differs from a dated source on this page, a study relies on the dated source. The case studies index holds worked studies set elsewhere, and Fort Wayne and the other Indiana markets have sections on the Indiana page.
What a lender should confirm on an Indianapolis deal.
The Signia's date, from the hotel
A current opening date from the hotel's own reservation calendar, since the published dates disagree by months.
Lease-ups since 2025 near the subject
For each apartment building delivered in the subject's drive time since January 2025, the months it took to stabilize and the concessions it offers today.
Rate and occupancy for named hotels
Twelve months of purchased data for the competitive set; the research holds no metro average daily rate.
City rules outside the research
The current short-term rental ordinance, any impact fee, the utility's written statement of water and sewer capacity, and the innkeeper's rate from the revenue department's own table.
Storm-season demand in Marion and Hamilton
Marion and Hamilton were both Individual Assistance counties in the DR-4933 declaration of August 25, 2026 24. A rental, extended-stay or storage study dated after it separates units let to displaced households from stabilized demand.
The parcel's tract
The USDA map result and the tract's Opportunity Zone and HUBZone standing, each dated.
Indianapolis questions, each answered at the submarket.
Does the metro's 5.6% growth belong in a demand case for a Marion County site?
Not as the growth line. Two rates are in print for 2020 to 2025, 5.6% for the metro 7 and 1.5% for Marion County 8, and the one a site earns is settled tract by tract: each tract in the drive time takes the rate of the county it lies in, so an area that never leaves Marion County reads 1.5% throughout and one reaching into Hamilton or Hendricks uses those counties' figures for the tracts inside them. The two are never blended into a third number. A second run holds every tract at the county rate, showing how much of the demand rests on the collar's growth.
Is the gap between HUD's 11,100-unit demand estimate and the 6,300 units under construction an Indianapolis site's cushion?
No, it is the metro's, and the metro's vacancy rose while it existed. HUD expects demand for 11,100 rental units over three years from January 2026 against 6,300 under construction 1, two figures from one analysis; the broker's count for 50-plus-unit properties belongs beside its own rent and occupancy readings, not against HUD's demand. That arithmetic still describes no site, since vacancy went up through the year those units landed. The study replaces the metro pair with a local one, the units opening within the drive time the subject draws from against the households it can show, each building's concessions printed beside its opening quarter.
Will the Signia convention hotel hurt or help a new Indianapolis hotel?
That depends on the walk from the convention center, and the study picks the opening date that hurts the subject most. The published dates disagree: Visit Indy's page looked to December 2026 3 and CoStar's July 2025 report to March 2027 4. A property close enough to take overflow is run with the later date, so its compression nights arrive as late as the record allows; a suburban property that meets the Signia only as competing supply is run with the earlier one. Both carry a stressed year: new rooms open, occupancy at its slipped level, rate flat.
Where does the Indianapolis data center halt stop?
At the city line, so a file that leans on a campus first says which jurisdiction the campus stands in. The halt, ratified by the Metropolitan Development Commission in August 2026, runs to December 31, 2027 17 and binds Indianapolis alone; Google's Morgan County campus, planned at 390 MW 6, sits outside it. Inside the city an announced but unpermitted campus is not demand until a permit issues after 2027; outside the city the campus enters on the operator's own schedule, with its end date, and the county's standing on data centers is recorded as of the report date.
Does a clinic near an Indianapolis hospital campus inherit the hospital's employees as demand?
No. The 26,200 people on Indiana University Health's schedule 1 are a workforce, sizing what a workforce buys, apartments, lunch and childcare near the campus, not the patients a clinic will see. Patient origin is built from the subject's own referral sources and the ZIP codes they serve, and the campus cuts both ways, since two health systems opened new facilities in 2025 1 and compete for the same visits. The study lists the medical offices and surgery centers in the trade area from the establishment count the economy section cites, surveys their hours and specialties, and counts the hospital as competitor and referrer before it counts it as demand.
One county line sets the scope of an Indianapolis study.
Marion County or the ring of ten counties around it: that one line decides whether the city's data center halt reaches a site, which innkeeper's rate applies and whether USDA is even a question, and it picks the submarket an Indianapolis demand case must prove.
Request a methodology briefingData sources and dates.
Entries are numbered as the text cites them. HUD's January 2026 market analysis supplies most employer, population and housing figures; city and county offices, brokers, newsrooms, a ranking site, project trackers and secondary population and tax summaries supply the rest under their own names, and the Census, BEA and SBA series are filled from the federal files when the page is built.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis: Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, Indiana, As of January 1, 2026 (employer counts cite the Marion County ACFR, 2024; vacancy cites CoStar).
- Eli Lilly and Company, Key Facts, Updated July 29, 2026 (employees as of June 30, 2026).
- Visit Indy, New Developments in Indianapolis, 2026.
- CoStar, Indianapolis market gains steam ahead of pivotal convention center hotel opening, July 25, 2025.
- REBusinessOnline, Indianapolis Lodging Edges Out National Trends, undated (read October 2026).
- ServerCountry, Indiana Data Center Projects, 2026.
- STATS Indiana, Indiana Business Research Center, Indianapolis, IN Metro Area profile, 2025 estimates.
- Indiana Business Research Center, InContext (U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates), Indiana's population estimates: Strong growth continues in 2025, March-April 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Building Permits 2025, 2025.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for large metropolitan areas, Modified September 30, 2026 (August 2026 preliminary).
- Indiana Business Research Center, Indiana Business Review, The Indiana housing market: 2026 forecast, 2025 (permits January to August 2025).
- The Kirkland Company, 2026.04 Indianapolis IN Multifamily Market Report, April 2026.
- Hotel Management, Indianapolis market profits from conventions, sporting events, 2025 (CBRE Hotel Horizons forecast).
- Bluebird CRE, Indianapolis Industrial Market Report - 2026 Q1 (CoStar data), Q1 2026.
- LegalClarity, Indiana Hotel Tax Rate: State, County and Exemptions (citing Indiana Department of Revenue Information Bulletin 204), undated (read October 2026).
- GoSBA Loans, Best Indianapolis, IN SBA Lenders, 2025 lending.
- Data Center Bans (citing FOX59), Indiana, August 2026.
- Avalara MyLodgeTax, New Indiana law bans local rental caps and reshapes short-term rental rules, May 2026.
- Coleman Report, Top 100 SBA 7(a) Lenders by Loan Amount FY25, FY2025.
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Detailed Tables, 2020-2024, 2020-2024 estimates.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Income by County and Metropolitan Area (table CAINC1), 2024, 2024 estimates.
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Capital Access, 7(a) and 504 FOIA loan-level data, as of June 30, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2023 County Business Patterns, 2023 data year.
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Release HQ-26-115: major disaster declaration for Indiana (DR-4933-IN), August 25, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Hamilton County, Indiana, Vintage 2025.
- STATS Indiana, Hamilton County profile, 2024 to 2025 components of change.
- Wikipedia (Census Vintage 2025; secondary), Indiana statistical areas, undated (read October 2026); 2025 estimates.
- Everycityintheusa (Census Vintage 2025 city estimates; secondary), All 566 Indiana Cities, 2026 (2025 estimates and 2020 base).
- DatacenterDynamics, Meta announces 1GW data center campus in Indiana, February 11, 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Building Permits, 2025, 2025.
- MMG Real Estate Advisors, Indianapolis Q2 2026 Pipeline Report, May 2026.
- City of Carmel, Rental Registration of Single-Family Dwellings (Ordinance D-2770-25), registration effective February 1, 2026.
- KSN Law, Rental Cap Legislation Advances in Indiana, April 22, 2025.
- Current Publishing, New state law voids Carmel's short-term rental restrictions, March 25, 2026.
- Hendricks County, Innkeeper's Tax, undated (read October 2026).