There's a storefront at 894 Logan St. on the courthouse square where someone recently pulled up the carpet and found hardwood floors from 1868. The owners plan to keep them. According to Current in Noblesville, the mismatched flooring dates back to when a carpet company used the building, and the new tenants decided to restore what was under it instead of covering it again.
That address has had a hard year, and it now has a fresh start. A business at 894 Logan announced in early summer that it would close because of the Embrace Downtown construction. By September, a new shop had set an October opening date there, before the brick work outside was finished. Downtown Noblesville is filling its storefronts ahead of the fence coming down, and the new owners are planning around the square's event calendar more than the construction schedule.
Where the street stands this week
According to the city project's September 2026 newsletter, the newest dated update, underground work for Phase 1B on Logan Street is done and crews have started setting clay brick pavers. The newsletter says the phase will be finished "this fall, weather dependent." The project's construction page estimates that all of Phase 1 will be complete in November 2026. It lists Logan as closed east of Eighth Street through the Ninth Street intersection, with business access maintained, and it doesn't give a reopening day.
If you've only been walking past the fencing, the phases are easy to mix up:
- Phase 1A is finished. The Eighth and Logan intersection is open, with improved crosswalks, new pavement and a new sidewalk connection to Clinton Street. Decorative pavers, signals and lighting at that corner will come in a later phase, after the Judicial Center expansion.
- Phase 1B is the work happening now, between Eighth and Ninth. The Hamilton County Reporter described it as widening sidewalks, removing curbs and adding landscaping buffers to create a traffic-calmed street built around pedestrian safety and accessibility.
- Phase 1C will replace the temporary six-foot sidewalk in front of the shops with a permanent decorative-paver sidewalk.
In practice, the street you walk past next week is still a work zone, and the next work zone, the storefront sidewalk, comes after it. The finished Logan Street will likely arrive in late fall or early winter, and several businesses on the block have opened or set opening dates ahead of it.
What the fence cost one storefront
Earlier this summer, Current in Noblesville reported that The Velvet Plum Vintage & Consignment, a home decor and furniture consignment shop at 894 Logan St., would close July 15. The owners, Kelly and Lance Cook, named the construction as the main reason. The shop had been on the square for six years, and the owners told Current that business had been good before work started on Logan in April.
In the same Current article, Kelly Cook explained why retail felt the street closure more than some other businesses. She pointed out that not every browser in a retail shop buys something, while nearly everyone who walks into an ice cream shop does. A retail store needs a lot of foot traffic to produce a steady trickle of sales, and fencing cuts off exactly that kind of foot traffic.
The Cooks still have a Noblesville store. Their antique and vintage shop at 939 Conner St. stayed open, and Kelly Cook told Current that foot traffic had picked up there because construction doesn't affect that location and parking is easy.
Who moved in, and why they didn't wait
Two months later, Current reported that Becca Wormuth, Jacqueline Beeler and Cassandra Brown would open The Collective on the Square at 894 Logan St. on Oct. 2, with opening-day hours from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The three already run County Line Collective at Hamilton Town Center. That store, which opened in 2025, combines three businesses: Stain Haven's handmade wooden signs and decor, County Line Apparel's graphic apparel for adults and children, and Without Borders Boutique & Permanent Jewelry. The Hamilton Town Center location stays open.
So the owners chose to open on a block that was still under construction while keeping a mall store that has none. Beeler explained the reasoning to Current:
"Being at the mall is amazing, but being from Noblesville, getting to be on the square means getting to participate in events like Small Business Saturday and the Indiana Peony Festival."
What drew them was the square's calendar. The owners also plan to use the building's basement as a workspace and as a place for open houses, ladies' nights and other gatherings. That's a plan for a shop that expects people to be on the square in the evening, which is what a finished, pedestrian-focused Logan Street is designed to bring.
The block's busiest newcomer opened mid-construction
The Collective isn't the first business to make this bet. The Pretender, a dining and analog listening bar at 818 Logan St., opened at the end of July, in the middle of Phase 1B. Current reported on Sept. 30 that it was already one of the busiest spots in town.
Blake Fogelsong, owner and director of operations for Clancy's Hospitality, modeled it on the Japanese kissa bars that appeared after World War II, when many people couldn't afford good sound systems at home and went to listen together. The name comes from Jackson Browne's 1976 album "The Pretender." DJs play records on the vintage equipment, and the bar still accepts donated vinyl. Fogelsong told Current that "Noblesville is growing but it still really values these historical buildings right on the square."
Compare the addresses. A consignment shop that depended on browsers struggled once the fencing went up, while a destination restaurant a few doors away opened behind the same fencing and filled up. The Collective is built to be a destination too, with evening events in its basement and a calendar tied to the square's festivals.
Around the corner, IndyStar reported in July that King Jugg Brewing was under construction at 151 N. Eighth St., on the site of the former Bolden's Dry Cleaners. That report did not give an opening date.
The dates the square is building toward
Beeler named Small Business Saturday as one reason to be on the square. It's also the first big downtown date after the city's November target for finishing Phase 1. Here is the Noblesville Main Street 2026 calendar for the rest of the year:
- Small Business Saturday, Nov. 28
- Deck the Downtown Weekend, Dec. 5–6
- NMS Holiday Gala, Dec. 10
- Holiday Market, listed for Dec. 12 under "Soon to be Announced," so confirm details with Main Street before planning around it
The city has also shown that the shopping push during construction made a difference. The September newsletter says the Embrace Small Business stamp program produced 2,165 individual transactions and an estimated economic impact of more than $200,000 in downtown Noblesville. Embrace Downtown is now featuring individual businesses on its Facebook and Instagram, and four people will win $50 gift cards to the featured shops.
The city's newsletter calls the Phase 1B finish "weather dependent," so whether the fence is down by Nov. 28 is still open. At 894 Logan St., the 1868 floors will be there either way.
If you own near the square and are wondering how this year's construction and the new storefronts will show up when you sell, The O'Connor Team is glad to look at your block's recent sales with you and talk through timing. Get in touch whenever you're ready.
