East Urban Design Workshop

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Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End
Workshop Resources
Workshop Results Poster Boards
Vision1: Infill & Mixed-Use Development
Vision 2: Redevelopment & New Landmarks
Vision 3: Mixture of Redevelopment & Ecological Design
Study Area Photos
Semisonic, Closing Time

Less than three decades ago Downtown won a hard-fought battle to be the location for Market Square Arena, home of the Indiana Pacers. After years of urban riots across the United States and in the heyday of suburbanization, many felt the modernist arena should be located along Interstate 465. But the arena was placed in the heart of Downtown only three blocks from the city core, Monument Circle.  

Market Square Arena ushered in renewed prosperity Downtown and was the first of many cultural and entertainment venues that were built over the next three decades, including MSA's successor, Conseco Fieldhouse. MSA was imploded on July 8, 2001, and its demise opens up new opportunities for the future of Downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods.

The Regional Center East Urban Design Workshop was a five-day community workshop held September 20-24, 2001. During the workshop, community business and civic leaders, area residents, design students, local design professionals, and nationally-recognized urban designers came together to help shape the future development of the study area on Downtown's Eastern edge, including the former Market Square Arena.
 
 
What is an Urban Design Workshop?
Urban Design is a multi-disciplinary process through which solutions to complex physical development challenges are arrived at. It ties together the architectural, site, transportation, economic, and social aspects of planning. A hallmark of the process is a focus on community-based planning--involving citizens in the planning and design of their own community. The workshop involves local and national design professionals, local stakeholders, design students, and the interested public. The results are often a series of maps and sketches that convey an idea of what the area could become.
 
Relationship of the Workshops to the Plan

The urban design workshops were held as brainstorming exercises to look at parts of Downtown Indianapolis that planners saw a significant opportunity for change in the next twenty years.  The workshop images and ideas are just that--ideas.  They are not formal proposals nor are they necessarily endorsed by the plan's adoption.  They illustrate concepts and "outside-the-box" thinking and were designed to provoke discussion and to infuse new ideas into the committee process.