Restoration continues on Soldiers and Sailors Monument

INDIANAPOLIS — More work is being done to clean up and update the historic Soldiers and Sailors Monument downtown.

This is all part of a multi-year restoration project with the goal of wrapping up everything by fall 2025.

Crews spent the last 18 months working on the north side of the monument. Now it’s time to start on the south side.

“This is a big project and we had to divide it into two because we need to have things like the Circle of Lights and make sure we are open for that, so we have to use one of the sides and we worked all of that out from the programming standpoint,” said J. Stewart Goodwin, the executive director of the Indiana War Memorials Commission.

This is the first major restoration project the steps leading up to the monument have seen in more than 50 years. Experts said the steps were starting to see a lot of wear and tear. In some places you can see the actual stone breaking.

“What we have is a situation where the water was freezing and thawing and expanding by 9% and as we know from our physics class, it delaminated the bottom of the stone to the point where you could crush it with your hand,” Goodwin said.

The restoration project will replace a number of worn-down steps and address any other cracks, chips or water leakage issues.

“This is the icon of the city and the state,” Goodwin said. “When people come here they know they are going to be seeing something special.”

The restoration project will not affect events happening on Monument Circle like the Farmers Market, Spark on the Circle, Oktoberfest or the Circle of Lights.

“What we try to do is make this as seamless as possible,” Goodwin said. “We don’t want things to be different. You can still see events are still going on here.”

All events will still go on as planned; Goodwin said the festivities will now happen on the north side of the monument while the south side is getting worked on.

Additionally, Goodwin said that the south side of the monument has more wear and tear damage.

“This is the side where they had the big concerts,” he said. “The heavy stages, forklifts, material handling equipment that they would run up and down through there… It chipped the stone. The fact is we don’t do that anymore.”

The project is expected to wrap up by November 2025.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Fox 59.