A rendering reimagining the intersection of Harriman Avenue and Baldwin Street appears in the Bargersville master plan. The plan shows what Bargersville could look like with a reworked Baldwin Street and development at the dormant Umbarger Show Feeds mill at the core of the town. Rendering by Browning Day
The downtown view of the master plan rendering shows new residential, business and civic uses as well as a parking garage, greenspace and public amenities. Rendering by Browning Day
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The vision takes shape over 45 pages.
Bargersville’s Downtown Master Plan reimagines what the town could look like with millions in public and private investment.
The master plan has been in the works for about six months, since fall 2024. It was guided by a 22-member steering committee, developed by Indianapolis-based planning and architecture firm Browning Day, and funded by the Bargersville Redevelopment Commission to provide interested developers with a road map for redevelopment and development in the downtown core.
The master plan received final approval from the town council last week, after previously passing votes by the town’s redevelopment and plan commissions over the past several months.
The full master plan can be found on the town’s website under the “Latest News” section on bargersville.in.gov.
Why create a master plan?
The plan is a visioning document rather than a planned project, and there’s no guarantee everything in the plan will unfold as expected.
“We should qualify this and say for the residents of the community that adopting this plan doesn’t mean that what you saw is going to happen. This is a plan for the long term, and ideas and thoughts of how it could look,” said Andrew Greenwood, a town council and RDC member, who was also on the master plan steering committee. “But the reality is that there are a lot of steps between where we are today and where this winds up. And there will be a lot of things that are shown that will never, ever happen; some things that weren’t shown that will happen.”
The plan came together over multiple meetings with local stakeholders, including town officials, local residents and business owners, county economic development leaders and others, according to the master plan.
Stakeholders expressed a desire to respect agricultural traditions while preparing for urbanization. To create a plan that incorporates the past and the future, Browning Day looked at case studies on how other communities, such as Greenfield, have redeveloped historic structures and retained agricultural roots while creating modern public spaces, according to the plan.
The plan also creates a road map for how the town hopes the State Road 135 corridor will develop around a to-be-created Baldwin Street extension, which would connect the street to both the state highway and Whiteland Road.
“First and foremost was that all roads want to lead to Area A [the downtown core] and it was important to authentically celebrate the railroad and the agricultural histories here in Bargersville — not to forget that, not to just kind of come in and do a plan that could be anywhere USA,” Drew Braley, principal and vice president of Browning Day, said in a presentation to the council. “It really wanted to be kind of focused on pieces and parts that are focused on the history and importance of those industries here in Bargersville.”
What’s in the plan?
Stakeholders envision Bargersville as an urban community that retains its roots in agriculture and creates a strong community connection with walkability and retail spaces.
Aside from history, stakeholders expressed a desire to make downtown Bargersville “a place I never have to leave,” incorporate art, green spaces, pedestrian connectivity, streets that are better planned and other ideas.
The plan envisions a new community center, an arts and culture venue, mixed-use developments, multi- and single-family housing, a hotel, medical offices, entertainment, a regional stormwater detention pond and more.
It calls for the redevelopment of the current town hall, the former Umbarger Shows Feeds facilities that tower over downtown, as well as other downtown buildings. The Baldwin Street project, more trails and downtown green spaces, including an expansion of the current Umbarger Plaza, are among other major highlights.
The Umbarger Plaza expansion would use additional land from the old feed mill facilities to add additional public gathering spaces downtown. Next to the plaza would be a civic center envisioned as a dual-purpose building housing an arts and cultural venue and town offices.
The idea would be similar to the municipal building in Fishers. The concept would feature a theater and arts uses on the lower floors and town offices on upper floors, Braley said.
The hope is to create this under a public/private partnership. Officials have already begun looking at potential partnerships and have approached some groups, according to Dax Norton, town manager.
A parking structure to serve the civic center and the rest of downtown would be built north of the center. The parking garage is assumed to be a future private investment, the plan says.
The types of businesses and housing featured in the plan are ideas, but what ultimately goes there will be determined by the market and be subject to approval by town boards in the coming years.
For housing, the plan calls for hundreds and hundreds of units, including single-family homes, townhomes, duplexes, fourplexes and apartments.
In downtown, developers would need to collaborate with people who currently own buildings to submit a redevelopment project. As for the State Road 135 and Baldwin Street areas of the plan, business uses referenced in the plan have been discussed with the landowner, but are still in early planning stages, Braley said.
Street makeovers
New looks for State Road 135 and a longer Baldwin Street are big influences within the plan.
The hope for the State Road 135 corridor is for it to eventually become a boulevard-type street with lower speeds to create a distinct sense of place, similar to McCordsville Square, Norton has said.
Adding to the town’s plans, several other traffic calming measures are planned on State Road 135, including the roundabout that is already planned for the intersection of State Roads 135 and 144, and others under consideration by the Indiana Department of Transportation north of the project area.
The Baldwin Street project would directly tie downtown to State Road 135 and Whiteland Road, with a variety of retail, housing and services linking the two and adding 1,150 linear feet to the roadway. This would create a new entry point to downtown, shifting it north from the traditional entry point at State Road 144.
Another part of the Baldwin Street project is realigning the intersection with South Street, which Norton has described as a “crazy angle.” The intersection would be replaced by a roundabout and shifted to the south and east.
Baldwin Street would be rerouted through a current Umbarger parking lot, but that was decided with the Umbarger family at the table, Braley said.
“What we have proposed is that Baldwin be rerouted essentially through the parking lot of the Umbarger feed building. … The caveat I’ll put on this is that Ro and Marty [Umbarger] were both integral stakeholders in our discussions with us. This wasn’t us coming in saying, blow everything out,” Braley said.
This option was deemed the best because it safely incorporates all of the elements of the streetscape and realigns the street to meet the goals of the plan. The streetscape accommodates all types of travel and includes lanes for vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians, along with landscaping and street parking.
”We looked at a variety of different options, and with general agreement and consensus from the group that we were talking to, this seemed to make for a variety of reasons made some good sense there,” Braley said.
What’s next?
Most of all, the plan is a document that invites developers to imagine what Bargersville could be with their investment. With the plan’s approval, it will be added to the town’s Vision 2040 Plan, which has been guiding growth since 2020.
As Greenwood alluded to at the town council meeting, there is a lot standing in the way of the plan’s implementation. Projects would be subject to town planning and zoning approval, financial approvals for developers and public financing pieces such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF) bonds, public-private partnership agreements and more.
Included with the plan is a financial outlook compiled by Stone Municipal Group. If all goes similarly to the plan, there would be about $400 million in new assessed value added to the town over the next roughly 15 years.
An estimated $22.1 million in public investment would be needed to carry out the plan, including the Baldwin Street project, the new town hall and the Umbarger Plaza expansion. Not included in that estimate is the estimated $5 million in stormwater infrastructure, which would likely be paid by the town utility using utility funds.
The plan is part of the effort to get away from the vision of Bargersville as a bedroom community. Town leaders want to reshape that perception by attracting more commercial and industrial developers to build in town and making Bargersville a place where people can live, work and shop, Norton said.
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