When Turner Woodard bought the Stutz Building in 1992 and saved the historic car factory from demolition, the modest plan was to “light it up, fix it up, clean it up, and lease it up,” Woodard says. Viability mattered more than vision. Warehouse storage made sense—Woodard had experience in that sector, and a Chinese restaurant soon asked for 50,000 “dry and bird-free” square feet to stash supplies.[caption id="attachment_286935" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]Local artists had a better idea for the industrial-sized blank canvas. They valued the generous spaces flooded with natural light and didn’t mind choppy and awkward layouts. Woodard, a painter himself, welcomed them with affordable rent. As word spread, the Stutz flourished as a vibrant artist community, and marketing startups, tattoo artists, and massage therapists moved in, too, creating what Woodard calls one of the country’s first small-business incubators. The annual open house was one of the best parties of the year. Bands played in the halls wide enough for automobiles, a cool crowd got lost in the gritty maze of stairwells and studios, and Woodard’s friends filled the room housing his car collection. Even when grunge fell out of style, the Stutz never did.[caption id="attachment_286923" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]The building threatened to fall apart, though, and Woodard didn’t want to tackle large-scale improvements alone. Plus, you never really knew where the front door was. Despite the challenges of an aging building never designed for walk-in traffic, the Stutz community stuck together. While they didn’t love the mice and out of order bathrooms, the long leases were a great deal, and the Stutz Artists Association carried prestige.In 2020, out-of-state developer SomeraRoad pulled up with a handwritten letter and a trunkful of capital—$100 million to buy the gold and green landmark and bring it up to speed. Fix it up, clean it up, lease it up—but all the way this time.Woodard believed he found good stewards in SomeraRoad. “I could have sold the building 10 times but was so concerned about the right touch with regard to the history and its place in Indianapolis and not making it wildly different, like backroom offices,” he says.[caption id="attachment_286920" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]SomeraRoad, which developed industrial spaces in Indianapolis already, says it took a couple years to understand Woodard’s dreams for the building and run with them in the same direction—a thriving creative community, but with better amenities and more to do. When IU Health’s $4 billion campus arrives a few blocks north, the Stutz will be sitting pretty as a neighborhood hub. SomeraRoad’s major structural improvements include replicas of the original windows, new mechanicals and sewers, shored-up exterior brick, modern elevators, and a rebuilt original archway off Capitol Avenue over one of the compound’s entrances. When the 110-year-old windows came out, materials around them crumbled. Portions of the building were falling off altogether.The street level, previously dominated by sleepy offices, is now what economic developers call “activated”—populated with businesses and event areas that draw a lot of foot traffic, including coworking spaces, cafes, and fitness studios. Once-bleak alleyways that broke up the building’s extreme girth (it swallows a full city block) are spiffed up and strung with white lights overhead. There are new murals and a free car museum with Woodard’s wheels. There’s a Patachou.Upstairs, some walls came down to create larger office spaces, including an area that can accommodate a corporate or creative anchor. The raw industrial feel remains, as do artist studios. SomeraRoad plans to fill the building back up with businesses as renovations continue in phases. The bulk of street-level businesses have opened gradually since May (Cafe Patachou and Julieta Taco Shop plan to join them later this month), and new-and-improved entrances along Capitol, 10th, and 11th make them easier for the public to find.[caption id="attachment_286921" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]SomeraRoad added two nods to Woodard, who retains a minority stake in the business—a taproom named Turner’s and the car museum, a handshake agreement in the deal. “That took longer to negotiate than the price of the building,” Woodard says. The museum sits at the end of the courtyard amid a patch of businesses including the taproom, VisionLoft Events Stutz, Amelia’s, Grounded Plant & Floral Co., and Barista Parlor. It’s an intentionally symbiotic arrangement. Weddings at VisionLoft can spread out to the beautified streetscape and the museum for receptions, and pedestrian traffic creates hustle and bustle.Art remains the chassis for the Stutz’s new commercial engine. SomeraRoad is continuing a long-standing artist residency, commissioning a major 3-D installation at one entrance, and deputizing Pattern, the Indy-grown powerhouse supporting creative entrepreneurs, to elevate the Stutz’s artistic integrity by overseeing activities. “I want it to be a hub of national recognition,” says Pattern’s Polina Osherov, now the Stutz’s program director. The shining example of the Stutz’s new ambition is Butter, a cool-kids art fair dedicated to Black visual artists nationwide. Sales have topped $500,000 in the first two years.There are still concerns about whether the Stutz’s old guard of artists will fit in. SomeraRoad consolidated existing studios into two buildings. Some artists left, put off by construction or month-to-month leases. A few artists were kicked out due to space availability, according to SomeraRoad. Rents haven’t changed, but some believe a hike is inevitable for the company to recoup its investment. SomeraRoad’s spokesperson says, “We are only raising rents on areas of the building that have undergone significant construction improvements. Artists located in older portions of the building will not experience rent increases.”[caption id="attachment_286936" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]The artists are worried about more than money. The number working there has gone from about 70 at its height to around 20 now, with most available studio space occupied. “We had a great community that helped each other. That’s all going to be gone without the number or diversity of talents,” says John Ross, a painter and longtime tenant. One of the absences is Constance Scopelitis, an original Stutz artist, who chose to accelerate plans for an at-home studio rather than relocate within the building. She is concerned about where exiting artists will land. “The era of the big warehouse is over,” she says. “Most places available now don’t have big windows, which is a death knell for an artist.”[caption id="attachment_286922" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by: Tony Valainis[/caption]Stuart Alter, president of the Stutz Artists Association, says SomeraRoad has supported the artist association and understands its value as an economic driver, and he is optimistic about the future. But he understands the qualms over major changes. “It’s going to be different, and that alone means that we don’t have what we had,” he says. “It might be better, but we don’t know.”Signs are starting to emerge now that the building is reopening. The Stutz’s annual open house drew upward of 4,000 people and took over the whole complex. By comparison, Penrod Society’s Magic in the Making fair in May drew about 1,000 people and was contained to two buildings. But that serious crowd spent money. “I had a wonderful night. Sales were good,” Alter says. Day to day, Alter is looking forward to having more company in the building. “There were offices, there was a lot of activity, but on weekends, the place was quiet,” he says. Now the Stutz is coming alive with markets, weddings, and brunch crowds. Whether the road ahead is a bumpy one or a joyride, it won’t be a lonely one.
THE BIG HAIR. The nails. The accent. The rhinestone stilettos. And with the loud laughing and sometimes cursing, which somehow only makes her more endearing, Theresa Caputo typifies an Italian-American Long Islander. (I’m allowed to say this because I’m one, too, having moved here only last year.) She hails from Hicksville, a town that is about as typical middle-class Long Island as it gets.
But, of course, Caputo is anything but typical. She’s arguably today’s best-known medium, channeling “Spirit” (her preferred collective term for entities from the other side) on 14 seasons of TLC’s The Long Island Medium and now on her podcast Hey Spirit! and live shows around the country. Fangirl that I am, I jumped at the chance for an interview ahead of her stop at Clowes Memorial Hall.
For those who aren’t as familiar with you as I am, can you summarize what you do?
I have the ability to communicate with people who have died. It’s also important to say what I don’t do. I will never tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do with their life or ask for lotto numbers. I use my gift for healing. It’s not about predicting the future.
How did you wind up with this ability? It must have seriously freaked you out at the beginning.
I have no idea why I was chosen for this gift. I still wonder. I started seeing spirits at age 4 but didn’t really accept my gift and learn how to use it until my late 20s. And yes, in between, I suffered from debilitating anxiety. I grew up in a family with strong faith that was very spiritual. My mom took me to a spiritual healer named Pat Longo. She told me that I was suppressing Spirit’s energy, which was causing my anxiety. She helped me channel Spirit through my chakras and release it in words. I began to come into my own.
At first you were just doing readings with friends and neighbors. How did you wind up on TV?
My friend Victoria Woods kept saying I was made for TV—ya think?—and that having a show was the best way to touch as many lives as possible. Victoria’s sister and a friend of hers were producers.
So how exactly do you get these messages? Do you hear them?
I get this question all the time, how I receive information. It’s hard to put into words. Spirit mostly speaks to me through a sixth sense, a kind of feeling and knowing. It feels like very strong intuition or remembering something. Spirit also uses symbols. Over time, I matched words, phrases, and meanings to the images I was shown. Through trial and error, Spirit helped me add new ones until we had a full vocabulary. It’s like piecing together a puzzle and can sometimes sound like guesswork, but Spirit speaks another language at another speed and in another dimension. I translate the symbols and my feelings as best I can and deliver a message. It’s the person’s job to interpret the significance. For example, Spirit might convey something that happened a long time ago that the person had forgotten about. Or it might refer to things that have happened since they died, to validate that they’re not missing out on their lives.
I went to a medium years ago who told me that my beloved grandma was “standing behind me” … and had nothing to say, apparently. But I did get enthusiastic and detailed messages from both the 20-year-old cousin of my then-husband and the father of my neighbor. Both had passed unexpectedly not long before my reading, but I wasn’t close to either one of them. Is there any rhyme or reason to who comes through?
Everyone’s experiences with mediums can be and are very different. If you’re not carrying a lot of burden or guilt connected to someone’s departure, Spirit might come through just to make an appearance, just to acknowledge that they know what’s going on in your life. While if you have someone who left the physical world in a tragic or unsettling way, I find in the work that I do [that] it’s those souls who push forward first.
Undoubtedly at every show you have people who don’t believe in mediums and are dragged there by someone else. How do you handle the skeptics?
I totally get it, and I respect people who don’t understand what I do. But this isn’t about people believing in mediums. It’s about coming around to believing in an afterlife. Yes, there are a lot of common things that Spirit refers to, but that’s why I have Spirit validate [unique things] for the person—specifics that there’s no way I could ever know or have found out about. So the person is not so much believing in me as believing in themselves to recognize and accept the message. I want to give skeptics hope and peace.
Do you find differences in the Midwest in how open people are to you or how the readings unfold?
I enjoy seeing different cities and towns and visiting all the mom-and-pop places when I’m on tour. I love the hometown feels. I don’t really find it different channeling from state to state. As you know, nothing fazes New Yorkers. Think about it; I literally just walk up to people back home, and I’m like “Hey, did you lose your Mom?” and they’re just like, “OK, what does she have to say?” But if I do that in the Midwest, they might be a little taken aback.
Will you share a recent reading that really surprised you?
Honestly, I say this a lot, but they all take me by surprise because of the unique things that Spirit has me talk about. But this just happened last week in Regina, Canada. I was channeling this little boy who died tragically. He was talking to his aunt, his father’s sister, in the audience. The little boy kept talking about somebody wearing a necklace with his footprint on it, which is very unique … a footprint? All of a sudden, a woman came from the other side of the theater shouting, “That’s my son!” Now, apparently these two women had not spoken in some time. And the little boy said to his mom, “You were in the store, and you saw my aunt, but you turned the other way.” And the mom looked at me, and said, “Yes, I did.” Her sister-in-law was very taken aback and asked, “Why did you do that?” This family had been torn apart because of this young boy’s death. But the women hugged at the end of the reading. Those messages that night reunited a family, and that’s why I do what I do.
We recently had to put down an extremely loved cat, so my son wanted me to ask … do you ever hear from people’s cats or dogs?
Yes! I’ve channeled every type of pet. A soul is a soul, and a bond is a bond. To a lot of people, their pets are their children. The messages are usually short and sweet from a pet, but the healing is there. And by the way, you cannot believe how many people across the United States have pet squirrels.
What can we expect at your upcoming show here in Indy?
A night surrounded by faith, hope, and peace. I love doing live shows. First, I’ll come out onto the stage, and I’ll give a quick speech on what to expect over the next two hours. Then, once I start sensing Spirit, I’ll come off the stage, and Spirit will guide me around and have me stop in front of the people who should receive the healing messages. We have cameras that follow me around, so no matter where you’re seated, you can witness this up close. To watch this and to feel the positive healing energy in that space will be something remarkable.
Theresa Caputo Live! The Experience comes to Butler’s Clowes Memorial Hall on October 1.
