Conclusion

The goal of this creative project is to develop an efficient and viable design solution to be at odds with the fleeting mall-based retail business for the Muncie community. The Muncie Mall was once a thriving cornerstone and supplied a social, economic, and feasible opportunities for the community. In spite of these success for decades, malls like Muncie’s classified under a B rating began to show decay in the early 2000s. In 2020 the Muncie Mall had closed its last anchor store and had recently been sold to the Woodmont company by Simon Group. With little hope and guidance, the mall had sat with no clear trajectory by the city or company. Emplaced to contrast the mall crisis, this capstone provided methodology and a blueprint to combat the mall’s rapid decline. Transforming this site from ruin to a mixed-use urban center that serves as a new downtown.

The newly developed Muncie Mall is an efficient and sustainable design solution to solve the decaying business at the Muncie Mall in Muncie, IN. The design focused on Muncie’s needs, and supplied viable and sustainable opportunities for the Muncie Community. It captures all previous exploration from case studies, journal articles, methods, and professional feedback along with all preliminary work that has led to this design. By introducing this development, the city would an increase economic growth/opportunity, reestablished ecosystems, and a regional anchor for the city. Ultimately achieving all objectives set previously in the beginning of the thesis, sustainable, social, and viable.

Ultimately this thesis was all about order, process, and community. There were simple steps that needed to happen in order for this process to function with the city. For instance, this capstone addressed all sustainable goals by designing the site as a carbon sink to balance the urbanized environment, reduce parking to allow for increased greenspace, revitalize on-site ecology through implementation of woodlands and wetlands, lowered onsite water runoff to execute natural water filtration, and, lastly, introduce spaces to create partnerships with local distributors. By laying the foundation for sustainable goals, this project was then able to build upwards and move toward the viable goals of the Muncie Mall. These specific goals were introduced to multi functionality through new infrastructure to provide retail, residence, and community-based experiences, introduced 600+ living spaces onto the site, catered to the local economy by providing a diverse affordable recreation and retail range, and designed outdoor amenities to stimulate seasonal economic interest. With these two orders in place, all social goals were executed by reestablishing a sense of place by designing spaces to host community-based events, increased local pedestrian accessibility through connections

to the Cardinal Greenway, stimulated a connection between downtown, local parks, and communities, encouraged community morale by introducing spaces for local leisure. Without a set process, a project will fail and have no purpose. Each goal was interconnected and grew off of one another to make a whole cohesive thesis. The three goals allowed me to grow in my knowledge of landscape architecture and solidified my career choice. My hope is that the Muncie Mall and malls across the United States turn to urbanize this impendable depreciation of these community anchors before being forced to shut down these social hubs in their communities.

CHAP-

TER 7: APPENDICES