Plumbing school hopes to build on Beech Grove Marsh store site

By: Taj Simmons

BEECH GROVE — Generations of Beech Grove residents used to shop for groceries at the corner of 18th Avenue and Albany Street, but the site has been abandoned for years. Now, a plumbing school wants to take the plunge and build on the abandoned lot.

Mechanical Skills, a trade school currently located on the east side of Indianapolis, purchased the former Marsh grocery store site and hopes to move its operations to Beech Grove.

"We wanted that central location," said Chuck Gillespie of Indiana Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Contractors. "We have a shortage of probably 500 to 1,000 plumbers in Indiana and the facilities we have currently are cramped."

Beech Grove's Marsh closed when the supermarket chain went bankrupt in 2017. A Safeway Foods moved in shortly after Marsh went out of business, but the market was abandoned and demolished by 2022.

First-term Beech Grove mayor James Coffman said the supermarket is a tough sell on the real estate market.

"It's been tough. This lot has been a focus for the city for many years," Coffman said. "When we lost the old Safeway a few years ago, it was hard. I used to shop at Marsh all the time. My father-in-law used to be a manager here."

Coffman said the closure of the nearby Saint Francis Hospital in 2012 added to the economic anxiety of the neighborhood.

He is hopeful the addition of hundreds of potential plumbers in Beech Grove every night could revive the area.

"I think this is a positive use for this site and it will spur more development this way," Coffman said. "This is a main corridor into the city of Beech Grove. There's so many areas of the city just prime for that, and I think this is going to add to it."

Beech Grove City Council needs to approve a rezoning request before Mechanical Skills can start building.