Mass Ave Next Vision Plan
Indianapolis, Indiana
Key Services:
→ Cultural and Asset-Based Mapping
→ Community Engagement
→ Comprehensive & Neighborhood Planning
→ Corridor & District Frameworks
Press:
Partners:
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. The Mass Ave Next District Vision Plan is a year-long strategic framework process designed to ensure that what makes Mass Ave extraordinary doesn't get lost in what comes next.
Commissioned by the Mass Ave Cultural Arts District (MACAD) in partnership with the Indianapolis Foundation, the plan asks a deceptively simple question: How does a cultural district stay cultural?
The district today is 6,400+ residents strong, a median household income of $87,000, and a 70+% renter population that is overwhelmingly working-age, educated, and white collar — a place optimized for creatives’ consumption but increasingly difficult to afford for the artists, small operators, and independent businesses that built its identity. The vision plan confronts that tension directly.
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 the strategic themes 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?
Approach
Engaging the District →
The Mass Ave Next Vision Plan follows a year-long timeline that moves from robust public engagement and district-wide inventory through analysis and into the creation of actionable goals, strategies, and recommendations for the corridor's future.
Proformus is leading both the overall engagement and district strategy, encouraging a wide array of residents and visitors alike to participate in this fully public visioning process.
Planning is both iterative and spontaneous, as sometimes the best ideas, well, “pop up” out of nowhere.
Public Kickoff // “Map Your Mass” // 02/21/2026 →
The public kickoff for the Mass Ave Next Vision Plan took place at The Garage Food Hall in the Bottleworks District at the north end cap of Mass Ave. “Map Your Mass” is the first open invitation for residents, business owners, artists, workers, and visitors to put their knowledge of the district on the table, literally.
The event is built around a large-format aerial map of the study area where attendees mark the places they love, the routes they walk, the corners that feel unsafe, the blocks that feel forgotten, and the spots they believe hold untapped potential. It's participatory spatial analysis: instead of us telling the community what the data says, the community tells us what the map misses.
We even built a draw-your-own Ann Dancing table for the kiddos. (Even though it truly became an all ages affair).
We don’t talk at people to plan, we listen to them.
And we always, always lead with joy.
