Stand on the new pedestrian bridge over 96th Street on a Wednesday evening this month and you can watch the whole thing happen at once. A cyclist coming south from 146th Street rolls past without breaking cadence. A couple walking north from Broad Ripple stops at the railing to take a photo of the traffic underneath. Someone with a leash in one hand and a coffee from The Well in the other is heading home. None of that was possible eighteen months ago.
For a long time Fishers thought of the Nickel Plate corridor as a north-south spine that ended at 96th Street. This year it stopped ending. And once you notice that, the rest of the summer starts to make more sense.
The bridge changed the map, not just the mileage
The extension itself is short. The 1.3-mile multi-use trail extension was constructed by the city in two phases with help from a $4.5 million grant administered by the Indiana DNR, filling a critical gap between 96th and 106th Street with a pedestrian bridge over 96th Street. A mile and change of asphalt does not usually rewrite anyone's weekend. This one did, because of what it connects.
Following the historic Nickel Plate railroad corridor, the trail now runs north from 96th Street through Fishers and into Noblesville, and on the south end, using the newly constructed bridge, it connects Fishers into Indianapolis. That is the sentence to read twice. A resident near 116th Street can now walk or ride to Broad Ripple without ever using a car lane. A visitor from Meridian-Kessler can arrive at the Nickel Plate District Amphitheater on two wheels. The trail stopped being an amenity inside a city and became a route between two cities.
"The addition of the 96th Street bridge to the Nickel Plate Trail is a major step forward for the metro area's regional trail network," Mayor Scott Fadness said at the opening, framing it less as a park improvement than as regional infrastructure.
The pocket park being planned by Delaware Township next to the trail near 131st Street is the tell. Delaware Township is working with the city to develop a pocket park with amenities next to the Nickel Plate Trail near 131st Street, and Fadness has said the city's initial goal was getting the trail built, and now the focus is on creating a unique experience where people can stop off and have a conversation with a neighbor. The trail is done. The next decade is about what lives alongside it.
The restaurant pipeline is filling in around the new geometry
If you have not driven past The Union at Fishers District in a few months, the leasing board has changed considerably. Two new restaurants are opening at The Union at Fishers District, a mixed-use development near the Fishers Event Center, with developer Thompson Thrift announcing that Cunningham Restaurant Group and Flower Child both signed leases to operate in the area off I-69 and 116th Street.
Read the Cunningham lease carefully. Cunningham Restaurant Group, the Indianapolis-based hospitality group that operates Rize, BRU Burger Bar, Provision, Livery and Vida, signed a lease for a two-story building with plans for approximately 5,700 square feet of fine dining upstairs. A two-story fine-dining concept from Cunningham is not a suburban outpost. It is a signal that The Union expects to draw evening traffic on its own terms, not as an overflow room for the Event Center.
Here is what is coming or arriving in the next few months, so you can plan accordingly:
| Concept | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Cunningham Restaurant Group (two-story fine dining) | The Union at Fishers District | Lease signed |
| Flower Child | The Union at Fishers District | 3,500 sq ft freestanding, lease signed |
| Dot Sugar | The Union at Fishers District | Lease signed |
| The Oakmont | The Union at Fishers District | Lease signed |
| Piedra, Kitchen Social, Niku Sushi, Racha Thai, Everbowl | The Union at Fishers District | Previously announced |
| Vicious Biscuit (Indiana debut) | Delaware Plaza, 8711 106th St | Progress underway |
| The Cake Pantry | Downtown Fishers | Lease signed |
| AC Hotels by Marriott (Indiana's first) | The Union, off 116th Street | Ground broken |
Sources: The Union's leasing announcements from Thompson Thrift covering Cunningham, Flower Child, Dot Sugar, The Oakmont, and previously announced tenants including Piedra, Kitchen Social, Niku Sushi, Everbowl, Racha Thai, Renova Aesthetics, Sweathouz, Unplug Soy Candles and a jewelry store; Vicious Biscuit's planned location at Delaware Plaza at 8711 106th St, Suite 110; and the AC Hotels by Marriott groundbreaking at The Union off 116th Street and The Cake Pantry leasing space in downtown Fishers.
The pattern is worth pausing on. Two years ago, the "new" Fishers restaurants were concentrated tightly around the amphitheater. This year's crop is stretched south and east: Delaware Plaza at 106th, The Union south of 116th, downtown proper. The trail runs through all of it.
The August calendar, honestly assessed
Concert nights are the busiest evenings in the Nickel Plate District, and the 2026 lineup at the AMP is heavier on indie and Americana than in years past. The 2026 Summer Concert Series lineup features performances by Niko Moon, Allen Stone, Band of Horses & Dinosaur Jr., and The Crane Wives. If you live within a mile of Municipal Drive, the useful information is not who is playing so much as when parking gets tight. Plan for it.
A few other things residents actually ask about in August:
- The Fishers Farmers Market continues at the NPD AMP through the season, and the amphitheater grounds host the Fishers Farmers Market and much more alongside the concerts.
- The Fishers Event Center is now past its one-year anniversary, having hosted over 125 events and become the home of three professional sports teams — Indy Fuel, Indy Ignite, and Fishers Freight. August is between hockey seasons but volleyball and touring shows are on the calendar.
- Popular annual events include Spark!Fishers, Fishers Blue Fest, the Fishers Arts Crawl, Symphony on the Prairie and Headless Horseman at Conner Prairie, and Symphony on the Prairie's summer run at Conner Prairie is the standard late-August pick if you want music without a downtown parking search.
- Geist Waterfront Park stays open through Labor Day. If you have not paddled from there yet this summer, the last three weekends of August are the window.
A Saturday, mapped
If you moved into a Fishers neighborhood in the last year and have not settled on a weekend rhythm, here is one that uses the new trail geometry the way it was built to be used.
- Start early at The Well Coffeehouse in the Nickel Plate District, then walk two blocks to the trailhead near Municipal Drive.
- Head south. The new bridge over 96th Street is the reward at mile three or so from downtown Fishers, and the sightlines from it are the reason to go.
- Turn around at the bridge or push into Indianapolis if you have the legs. The connection to the Monon corridor is what makes the whole system regional.
- Lunch back in downtown Fishers. The area has added Cooper & Cow Steakhouse, Four Day Ray Brewing, Max & Tilly's, Parks Place Pub, Rush Bowls, Tiburon Coastal Cuisine and The Well Coffeehouse to the food scene, alongside shops like Angelo's Italian Market, Le Macaron French Pastries, Penn & Beech Candle Co., Roman & Leo and Twigs and Tea.
- Reset at Geist Waterfront Park in the afternoon, then pick a concert night or a quiet dinner at The Union. Both work.
That routine did not exist in this shape a year ago. The bridge is the reason it does now.
The road projects everyone is quietly watching
August is also the last full month before two long-running INDOT projects start delivering results residents will feel. The Indiana Department of Transportation's Clear Path project is wrapping up in 2026, along with the ongoing Ind. 37 rehabilitation, a collaboration between Fishers, Noblesville, Hamilton County and INDOT, and the Ind. 37 project should be completed by the second quarter of 2026.
The reason to care is not the pavement. It is what happens to the side streets. Fadness has said the city will be watching Clear Path particularly closely at the 96th and Allisonville roundabout, because there is currently a tremendous amount of traffic volume at those intersections as drivers divert off I-465, and once Clear Path opens, side-street traffic patterns will fundamentally change and the city will have to adjust. If you live near 96th and Allisonville, or on any of the north-south connectors between there and 116th, the character of your street may shift this fall. Anyone thinking about a move within Fishers should keep an eye on how those adjustments settle before drawing conclusions from a spring drive-through.
A closing note from our side of the desk
We spend a lot of time on the streets between 96th and 146th because that is where clients keep telling us they want to live, and the questions we get in August are almost always about texture: which block feels quiet on a concert night, which coffee shop opens early enough for a weekday runner, whether the trail actually goes where the map says it goes. It does now. That is new.
If you are thinking through what any of this means for a specific address, whether that is a first home near the trail, a downsize closer to downtown, or an investment property near the corridors that are about to shift with the road projects, Tim O'Connor and the team are happy to walk it with you. Bring the questions you have not seen answered on a portal. Those are the ones we like best.
