The Park Master Plans, 1954–2027

1954; 1982; 1987; 1998; 2014–2018; 2021–2025; the next update in procurement

Lead: The park system's own planning line runs in five-year documents. Its first entry is the chronology's: "1954 — First comprehensive park master plan developed." The next three stand at the same depth, dated foundings of a planning habit: "1982 — Five Year master plan completed"; "1987 — Five year master plan completed"; "1998 — Five Year Parks & Recreation Master Plan completed." The modern era of the series begins with the 2014 plan. The City of South Bend 5-Year Park Master Plan 2014–2018 was prepared by the JPR team with GreenPlay LLC; at plan time, the planning team's summary states, the city held 57 parks and 1,200 acres of park land, and the plan "resulted in a $5 million parks bond" — the chronology dates the bond to 2015 and adds a fact the 2014 plan's own operations chapter states, that no park bond had passed since 1972 before it. The plan named Howard Park a high-priority site, and the department it described maintained some 1,200 acres plus roughly 150 intersections and medians and more than 400 lots. The 2017–2021 Venues Parks & Arts Strategic Plan that followed lists its own informing documents, and they map the era's planning whole: the My SB Parks & Trails project list, the Riverfront Conceptual Framework, the 2014 Parks Master Plan and Master Capital Plan, the City Cemetery Plan and the Coal Line Trail Plan. In 2017 two further bonds were secured, of $5 million and $12 million, and the chronology records the launch of "My SB Parks & Trails system-wide improvement and development plan" as "a $62 million parks investment, largest in city history."

The current document of the series is the Master Plan Update 2021–2025, the source of this chapter's chronology, board record and inventory, prepared for the Board of Park Commissioners' acceptance. Its successor is already in motion: on 26 October 2026 the city issued a Request for Qualifications for the next Venues Parks & Arts 5-Year Master Plan Update, with preliminary engineering for priority parks, in anticipation of a Phase 1 planning grant through the Indiana Community Parks Initiative — responses due 16 November 2026, a consultant's notice to proceed anticipated 4 January 2027, and the final plan and implementation package dated 30 July 2027. The department's own RFQ frames the line it continues: "The last Master Plan was completed in 2014 and provided strategic guidance on capital improvements within the city's Parks and Trail system" — the 2021–2025 document riding, in the city's own procurement language, as the update of that 2014 plan. Both characterizations stand as their documents give them.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend Venues Parks & Arts, Master Plan Update 2021–2025 (chronology: the master plans of 1954, 1982, 1987, 1998, 2014; the 2015 bond; the 2017 bonds and the My SB Parks & Trails launch at $62 million).
2. JPR (Jones Petrie Rafinski), project record for the South Bend Five Year Park Master Plan (the JPR/GreenPlay team; 57 parks and 1,200 acres at plan time; the $5 million parks bond as the plan's result).
3. City of South Bend 5-Year Park Master Plan 2014–2018 (its operations record: no park bond since 1972; the maintained acreage, intersections and lots), as published in the plan's public edition.
4. South Bend Venues Parks & Arts Strategic Plan 2017–2021 (City of South Bend document system: the informing documents list).
5. City of South Bend, Request for Qualifications, Venues Parks & Arts 5-Year Master Plan Update with Preliminary Engineering Services (issued 26 October 2026; the schedule through 30 July 2027; the framing of the 2014 plan).