Auburn, Indiana

park space and a pavilion that can accommodate as many as 400 people.“I don’t believe there’s any- thing like it in the state,”Yoder claims. Downtown Auburn is also experiencing a surge of redevelopment.“Downtown was built back in the 1800s, and a lot of buildings go back to the turn of the last century,”Yoder reports.And like many older downtowns, he says that Auburn struggled during much of the last century, as big box stores in the suburbs replaced downtown business.Hap- pily, in 2015, local investors, Rick and Vicki James, purchased the old Auburn City Hardware store, a fixture in the community since 1859, and reopened the building as the Auburn City Steakhouse.The James family,which owns Metal Technologies, Inc., also runs the James Foundation and restores histor- ic buildings like the hardware store, giving Auburn’s past a place in its future.Along with Jeremiah's Brewed Awakenings Coffee Shop and The Deli at Sixth &Main, the Auburn City Steakhouse is their latest project. The City did its part by completing a $1.3 million