About Next Muncie

Amazing things happen when we work together

Many efforts are underway in our community. Committed leaders from across Muncie believe in collaboration and have formed a strategic partnership to create transformational success throughout the Central City. The Next Muncie team is leveraging Muncie’s place-based assets to advance goals shared by the City, Muncie employers, public, private, and philanthropic sectors.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEAMS

Members of the Central City Leadership Team serve as liaisons to Project Management Teams (PMTs). These PMTs are committees of engaged residents and community organizations who are doing the day-to-day work of community transformation. Next Muncie convenes these PMTs to encourage the sharing of advocacy, planning, communicating, and executing a variety of projects. These PMTs meet regularly to provide progress updates, brainstorm solutions, and coordinate implementation of specific initiatives.

Meet the Central City Leadership Team

Why Central City?

Muncie’s “Central City” has been chosen as the focus of Next Muncie as both the hub of activity and catalyst for meaningful city transformation. The Central City area includes Muncie’s highest concentration of place, economic, cultural and educational assets, including thriving institutions and key areas ripe with opportunity. With the support of anchor organizations and enriched by cultural destinations, the projects of Next Muncie are the building blocks needed for the next phase of growth. While the effects of these transformations will radiate past the Central City and reach all of Muncie, it begins with the core.

Our Action Plan

PEOPLE

  • Enhance social and economic mobility for residents living in disadvantaged neighborhoods

  • Increase quality of life and encourage cultural diversity in the Central City

  • Expand and develop a robust and deeply integrated art scene in the Central City with a heavy focus on art, music, culture, and history

  • Increase options and access to entertainment opportunities that are attractive for all groups and ages

  • Continue to support a robust healthcare system for all ages and socio-economic statuses

  • Support and develop a comprehensive educational system with pathways that begin with early childhood learning and continue into career pathways in middle school and high school that will enable our youth to successfully enter the workforce or post-secondary education

PLACE

  • Connect the Central City through recreational opportunities, greenway linkages, and underutilized community assets like the White River

  • Create a market for diverse housing options, including affordable single-family and multi-family units, as well as quality options to attract and retain young professionals and baby boomers

  • Increase quality of place by investing in cultural amenities, place-based assets, education, diverse housing options, and recreational opportunities

  • Support and prepare our community for next-generation mobility initiatives, such as electric cars, electric bikes, bike share, autonomous vehicles, online food marketplace, and car sharing

PROSPERITY

  • Promote collaboration between public and private entities to maximize economic impacts of current and future projects

  • Enhance economic development vitality by investing in workforce training and increasing employment opportunities based on our local assets in manufacturing, arts, and cultural sphere

  • Utilize individual projects to build momentum for reinvestment in the Central City and catalyze high-quality development

  • Provide an attractive lifestyle setting that helps retain recent college graduates and employees and attracts new talent to the region

  • Increase tax base by investing in new development, which in turn will help fund neighborhood revitalization efforts

  • Provide the specialized and educated workforce needed to support and grow Muncie's existing businesses and business clusters