Community leaders broke ground Tuesday on a $3 million project to bring improvements to Tarkington Park, located west of the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Staff at the Martin Luther King Community Center are concerned about calls to the police on Black teens using the center's facilities.

Tarkington Park has been the go-to destination for the Black community in Indianapolis for years, but the neighborhood where the park is located is at the intersection of stark racial, health and socioeconomic disparities.

Mayor Joe Hogsett visited one group near Tarkington Park, to hand out the checks.

When costs for the project rose, plans for a cafe and plaza in the park were scrapped. The neighborhood association needs to raise matching funds of $200,000 dollars by the end of the year to get the plaza back into the construction plan.