Community Engagement · Urban Planning
Mass Ave Next Vision Plan
Indianapolis, Indiana
What
Mass Ave has become downtown Indianapolis's home for arts, culture, food, shopping, and more. But success brings pressure — and without a shared plan, development happens to a district rather than for it. Commissioned by the Mass Ave Cultural Arts District (MACAD) in partnership with the Indianapolis Foundation, the Mass Ave Next District Vision Plan is a year-long strategic framework built to ensure that what makes Mass Ave extraordinary doesn't get lost in what comes next. It asks a deceptively simple question: how does a cultural district stay cultural?
Our process moves through three phases — Discovery, Opportunity Identification, and Thinking Big — synthesizing spatial analysis, stakeholder input, and community engagement into a framework organized around four strategic themes: Experience & Use, Neighborhood Structure, Mobility, and Catalytic Sites. But the physical is only half the equation. Running alongside them are guiding themes — the sociophysical layer that asks not just how do we get there, but what do our decisions say about who we are?
A year in three phases
Each phase synthesizes spatial analysis, stakeholder input, and community engagement — so by the time the plan thinks big, it's thinking with the district, not just about it.
Four strategic themes
Each theme is read through the plan's guiding themes — the sociophysical layer that asks not just how do we get there, but what do our decisions say about who we are?
Built in public
A cultural district's plan can't be written behind closed doors. The Mass Ave Next process puts its thinking on the street as it develops — presentation boards at public events, participatory mapping, and conversation with the artists, merchants, residents, and institutions who make the avenue what it is.
That input doesn't decorate the plan; it directs it. The district tells us what to protect — and the framework organizes how.
Project Details
- Client
- Mass Ave Cultural Arts Distict
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Status
- In Progress
- Partners
- City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Foundation
Key Services
- Cultural & Asset-Based Mapping
- Engagement Strategy & Facilitation
- Comprehensive & Neighborhood Planning
- Corridor & District Frameworks