TOGETHER WITH

Good morning, Wichita!

Do you still enjoy these “deep dives”? Anything you want to learn about?

Let us know!

Let's get to it!

- Landon Huslig

Together with Meritrust Credit Union

A Simple Step Toward Financial Wellness

Meritrust Credit Union cares about financial well-being.

How do they prove it? 

They implement tools like their Financial Health Survey that goes out each year to both employees and members as part of their mission. The survey is a simple way to show people where they are financially and get them connected with the tools, resources, and support they need from the Meritrust Financial Well-Being Team.

This not only helps them take meaningful steps toward their financial goals — it also helps Meritrust identify ways to enhance their services, benefits, and educational programs to better help everyone. It’s a quick process, but the insights gained can lead to lasting improvements.

 This is just one of many things Meritrust does to stay ahead of the game when it comes to finances. Check them out here.

Downtown Wichita Action Plan

We all want downtown Wichita to thrive.

It has made strides in the right direction, but as with all of Wichita, it doesn’t seem like we are quite over the hump yet.

As the Downtown Wichita website states:

We all know how important the downtown of any city is for a city as a whole, but what are the next steps for Wichita?

2010 Project Downtown: The Master Plan for Wichita

Back in 2010, the community came together to provide some aspirational vision and deliberate strategies for public and private sector development. The goal was to look forward 20 years and create a plan for what Downtown Wichita could become.

The result?

This development blueprint drove $1.7 BILLION in completed investment and created a more than $760 million project pipeline.

You can see the full 2010 report here.

You’ll see some things we are still working on… like fully activating our river, but there are plenty of positives from that plan. There was also a lot of talk about making Wichita more walkable, which has been a big focus of phase 1 and phase 2 of the meetings so far this year.

15 years later, it is time to update this project again and look to the future.

We need to be strategic and hone our focus to make sure we can actually move the needle forward.

This could use a whole long blog to dissect how well the last master plan went, but we will leave that for another day.

2025 Downtown Wichita Action Plan

Downtown Wichita partnered with Sasaki (a global urban planning and design firm) to bring together a full roster of best-in-class design (MCLV), real estate & economics (Ideas & Action), walkability (Speck Dempsey), place identity (Public Sphere Projects), and community engagement (Parson + Associates).

There are been a couple of meetings already this year and while I can’t highlight ALL of the insights and details from these meetings, I encourage you to read up more if it interests you.

Some of the goals (lined out well by the Greater Wichita Partnership and Emily Barnwell):

• Downtown Identity: Highlighting cultural assets and creating unique spaces that showcase what makes Wichita special.

• Strengthening Connections: Enhancing connectivity across districts, neighborhoods and the Arkansas River.

• Inspiring Growth: Identifying new and current development opportunities while coordinating with current city plans and initiatives, such as wayfinding and two-way street conversions

• Collaboration: Bringing community voices together to shape our downtown.

I’ll be sure to link the full report from each and point out a few interest notes.

Phase 1 - Ideate and Iterate

Over 300 Wichita's came together on March 4th for the Phase 1 meeting to help inform the “Ideate and Iterate” phase of the Action Plan.

Here are a few insights from the Phase 1 meeting:

• Of the attendees at the meeting, Wichitans attend Arts & Music events the most and Sports the least

• There are not enough open spaces downtown

• People would like to see trails and maintained bike lanes

• People are dying for grocery stores downtown

If you want to dive deeper, renowned city planner Jeff Speck who wrote “Walkable City” talked out growing “Toward A More Walkable Wichita”:

Phase 2 - Align & Act

Over 200 Wichita's come out on June 2nd to help inform the plan’s design strategies and key implementation as part of the “Align and Act” phase.

Some of the Key Points from Phase 2:

• Living & Working: People want more amenities like a grocery store as well as a cleaners after, and greener urban downtown well-connected to the Arkansas River. They also want more “third spaces” like parks, plazas and cafes as well as increased after-hours activities

• Getting Around: People want upgrades like better shade, safer crossings, and more street level activity on many streets (like Douglas, Broadway, Emporia, William, and English). They also want better bus routes (frequency, direct routes, etc)

• Landscape & Public Realm: The community wants the riverfront to be a lush, active, public anchor with open space

Phase 3

All of Wichita is invited out to the FINAL Open House next Wednesday, August 27th from 3pm to 6:30pm at the Downtown Wichita Office 501 E Douglas Ave.

This open house will be interactive and design-focused. The goal will be to use community feedback to fine-tune the lan and offer feedback before the plan is finalized in early fall.

RSVP HERE

Once the full report is published, we’ll probably do another of these to highlight the main points.

All this being said, please make your voice heard next week. Wichita is primed to be a special place, but we need everyone’s ideas and input.

What do you want to see us go deep on in a future deep dive?

Let us know!

New Hat Alert

Upside Down Wichita Hats now available!

Quick Event Rundown

• Eli Young Band and Easton Corbin | Equity Bank Stadium | 8/22

• Forgetting the Titans | Mosley Street Melodrama | 7/25 - 9/6

• Open Streets ICT - Douglas | Douglas | 9/28

• Nate Bargatze | Intrust Bank Arena | 12/10 (rescheduled from September)