INDIANAPOLIS— On Tuesday afternoon, Mitchell Dudley is taking his daily lunch walk along the White River.
"Right now I think it’s really pretty to be down here during the day to see the changes in season and all the people out and about," said Dudley.
He says he'd like to see more done to bring people to that area.
"All the commercial district is centered in the downtown square mile, so being able to draw people out here to take advantage of everything that’s down here along the river," said Dudley.
Indianapolis city leaders and tourism experts are looking to do just that. Last week, 25 of them went to Singapore for a study mission.
It's part of the plan to redevelop the White River. In 2019 they launched the White River Vision Plan.
"We wanted to go to a location that has activated its waterfront in the most authentic and meaningful way and that was Singapore," said Chris Gahl with Visit Indy.
Gahl says Singapore has invested $1 billion into cleaning its water as well as having restaurants, hotels and museums along the waterfront to help increase tourism.
For four days the delegation that went met with officials in Singapore to talk about those efforts and believe they can incorporate them here in Indy to redevelop the White River.
"We also talked to tourism leaders and how did you take all these tourism related assets along the water and leverage that to increase tourism by 30 percent in a three year period," said Gahl.
Gahl says the study mission is timely with development along the White River which includes the expansion of White River State Park, the Indy Eleven stadium going up, the new Elanco Global Headquarters going in, and Citizens Energy's dig project to clean up the river.
"Which will make White River recreationally safe by 2026-2027. The time is now to align, to get inspired and to make sure that what were doing isn’t piecemeal along the White River in downtown Indianapolis but is thoughtful and inspirational and Singapore is the best case example of that," said Gahl.
The trip cost $85,000, but is all privately funded.
The group that went on the trip will meet again in December to discuss next steps.
