Castleton Area Revitalization Plan Indianapolis, Indiana
Services Provided
Planning
Urban Design
People Involved
Eric Lucas
Aaron Kowalski
Luis Calvo
Awards
2022 APA-IN Hoosier Planning Award Honorable Mention for Outstanding Economic Development
2022 INASLA Merit Award
Reenvisioning northeast Indianapolis’s center of commerce into a vibrant mixed-use, walkable, 24-hour urban center
For more than a generation, Castleton, a large area of Indianapolis’s northeast side, has served as a vibrant center of commerce for all of Central Indiana. With changing national trends including a decline in retail and office demand, the area is positioned for a new era of vitality and transformation as a center of not just shopping but living and playing. Castleton is at a critical moment - to think forward to the next version of this area and build on it’s past to create a vibrant future.
MKSK worked with the City of Indianapolis leading a multidisciplinary team (Empower Results, Gibbs Planning Group, Greenstreet, Policy Analytics, Toole Design Group, VS Engineering) to develop a comprehensive, high-level vision for the revitalization of the city’s Castleton area and I-69 corridor. The plan addresses challenges with the age and condition of existing development and the shifting retail preferences. The vision includes a comprehensive transformation for the area, from augmenting existing commercial developments (including Castleton Square Mall), redeveloping failing commercial centers, creating new nodes of activity with a mix of land uses, vertically densifying areas, strengthening land use designations to promote vibrant businesses, to creating destinations, improving walkability and connectivity, embracing other modes of transportation, developing new open space, leveraging the White River and Nickel Plate corridors, and enhancing the area’s identity.
The vision proposes new development patterns that encourage shifting from the current auto-oriented environment to more walkable ‘village’ environments that are no more than a 10-minute walk from one end to the other. Infrastructure improvements, both near-term catalytic projects and longer-term investments, will be critical to supporting the vision and implementing the plan.
The planning process created enthusiasm, imagination, and a spirit of cooperation among Project Stakeholders and the Community. This plan is a comprehensive, high-level vision that will guide future Investment through an action-oriented, prioritized set of implementation steps, identifying near-term catalytic redevelopment opportunities and infrastructure improvements as well as longer-term recommendations.
