Fishers is a city that, like Carmel, IN, has been making great strides towards creating a walkable center in the otherwise largely car-dependent landscape north of Indianapolis. Speck Dempsey was hired to map the next two decades of growth in a way that would ensure urban quality while still allowing a wide range of outcomes. This goal, which underlies most similar efforts, is accomplished through two tools: the Illustration Plan, which shows one desired outcome, and the Regulating Plan, which serves as a localized zoning overlay to control those aspects of the plan that are desired in all outcomes. These aspects include the design of the public realm, the locations and heights of building facades, the hiding of parking, the places where retail is required and prohibited, the locations of curb cuts, and other features that determine the public impact of private development.

For Fishers, the team unilaterally made the choice to further communicate the flexibility of the Regulating Plan by providing two district Illustration Plans for each sector of the study area: one lower-density, and one higher-density. It also focused on the very heart of downtown, the Municipal Oval, where replacing three surface parking lots with a parking structure allows for the proper spatial definition of the City’s central green.