By rssfeeds-admin 
More than a dozen vehicles from the bankrupt Yellow Freight chain are parked along Kentucky Avenue just off West and South streets on the southwest side of downtown Indianapolis.
Before the property belonged to Ozdemir, and before it belonged to Diamond Chain, the 28-acre site was, and still is, the location of Greenlawn Cemetery, a collection of plots that are the resting places of hundreds if not thousands of Indianapolis pioneers going back to the late 1800s.
”The first European settlers are buried there,” said historian Leon Bates. “There are people from Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Jewish faith, all buried over there.”
The recovery of those remains before work could begin on the land stalled Ozdemir’s plans last year.
”The last number I heard was well over a hundred sets of remains,” Bates said of the developer’s first pass at clearing the property of century-old graves. ”You know, its kind of a ghoulish thing. We know that it’s a cemetery. We know that people were buried and left there. And we’re gonna park commercial trucks and trailers over them.”
Ozdemir’s dream seems as tattered as the banners hanging on broken-down fences lining the site announcing the location as the future home of Eleven Park after Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber came to Indianapolis last week to meet with Mayor Joe Hogsett and Governor Mike Braun about the City’s plan, with potential financial backing from Pacers Sports & Entertainment, to house a franchise at a proposed 20,000 seat soccer stadium across downtown at the decommissioned Indy Heliport.
”It doesn’t look very promising that they’re going to get to build the soccer stadium they want over there,” said Bates. ”We’re still in a holding pattern to find out what they’re going to do with this site.”
Bates said as long as the graves are not disturbed, Ozdemir’s company, Keystone Construction, is not breaking any state laws by parking trucks on the property, “but, morally, it’s reprehensible.”
Ozdemir was all smiles, with the governor at his side, during a ribbon cutting for Keystone’s $100 million renovated Intercontinental Hotel at 17 West Market Street where there was no talk about soccer stadium disputes or shifting alliances to bring the World’s Game to Indy.
”Governor, thank you for being here, as a fellow entrepreneur who knows how to write checks,” said the developer and minor league soccer team owner. ”We’re lucky you’re running our state and we’re thankful for you.”
”You’ve stuck your neck out,” said the governor. “You put your rear end on the line financially. You learned how hard it is to get to first base many years ago.”
Two former mayors, Greg Ballard of Indianapolis and Jim Brainard of Carmel, attended the ribbon cutting.
Current Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett was not present.
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