Indiana Historical Society to keep its building, land following agreement with governor’s office

The Indiana Historical Society (IHS) will keep its building — and take ownership of the land it sits on — after a compromise with the governor’s office.

The agreement follows earlier consternation over the historical society’s Indianapolis headquarters during the 2025 legislative session.

​​Gov. Mike Braun’s original budget proposal for the upcoming biennium included provisions that would have terminated a longstanding lease agreement, under which IHS paid $1 annually to lease the state-owned land that houses the nonprofit’s 165,000-square-foot building. The lease also obligated the state to cover approximately $1 million per year in maintenance and operational costs.

House and Senate Republicans included similar, jeopardizing language in their budget drafts.

Braun’s office later clarified that the state did not intend to force the institution to give up its building. The final version of the budget retained provisions in current law that permit IHS-state leases and only struck the maintenance requirements.

“We are very pleased to have a final agreement with the state to set in motion a process to transfer to us the land we operate on currently. They have been terrific partners throughout,” said Jody Blankenship, president and CEO of IHS. “This agreement will put us on a path to carry out our mission for decades to come.”

Braun signed the next two-year state spending plan this week. It takes effect July 1, at the start of the next fiscal year.

“We are pleased that the state and the Indiana Historical Society finalized an agreement that begins the process to transfer land from the state to the Society. We appreciate the partnership of the Indiana Historical Society Board and its leadership,” said Griffin Reid, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, in a written statement to the Capital Chronicle. “The necessary legislative changes, as reflected in the budget bill, allow the Indiana Historical Society to continue its mission to preserve and promote Indiana’s rich history.”

The historical society owns the downtown Indianapolis building where its headquarters, museum and archives are housed. It does not, however, own the land on which the building sits.

Language in the earlier budget drafts would have cancelled the existing lease agreement between the state and IHS.

According to contracts reviewed by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, any expiration or termination of the lease would have required IHS to “surrender to (the state)” the land in question.

Separately, a provision in state law required the historical society to “convey” its building title to the state after the structure was constructed. That law dated back to 1992, and the IHS building opened to the public in 1999.

The title was never transferred, however. Braun’s budget deleted that conveyance language from Indiana Code.

Braun’s office maintained that the state simply wanted to reduce or eliminate costs of contractual maintenance for the IHS building, and that the governor did not intend to assume the IHS building or the state land on which it sits.