For most of the last decade, a Saturday out in McCordsville meant a drive. Coffee in Fishers, lunch near Geist, ice cream on the way home. The town had subdivisions and a high school, a Kroger and a Scarlet Lane, but not a place you walked to. That gap is what made McCord Square feel theoretical for so long. Renderings on a town council slide, a construction fence off Broadway, a promise about a "town center" that residents had learned to shelve.
This summer is the first one where the promise reads as present tense. The apartments are leased, four food tenants are serving, the Farmers Market picked up and moved to Main Street, and a public library branch is landing above the NineStar Connect building before Labor Day. If you have not walked the block since last summer, the Saturday map you are running on is a year out of date.
What is actually open right now
The dining anchor everyone asks about is Maple, a breakfast and brunch restaurant that is a rebrand of the former Le Peep. Same operator, new name, same 3,100 square feet on the first floor of the Lucas building with a patio that reads onto the Square. That is worth knowing if you saw the Le Peep announcement in 2024 and have been checking back for an opening date; the sign changed, the concept did not.
Around it, the current food and grocery lineup at the Square is Leo's Market and Eatery, Libby's Ice Cream, and Rita's Italian Ice and Frozen Custard. Add the offices that keep the block busy on weekdays, Hancock Eye Associates, IU Health, and NineStar Connect, and the practical picture is a walkable stretch where you can eat two meals, run an errand, and see a doctor without moving your car.
Just north of the main entrance, at 7745 N. County Road 600W, is the piece that residents keep sending to out-of-town friends. Coffee at the Crossing is the train-themed cafe partially housed in a renovated caboose, and the interior is genuinely unusual. It is the one spot in the walk that is not part of the Rebar development, and it sets the tone for the block more than any of the branded tenants do.
The Saturday that no longer requires leaving town
The single biggest change to a McCordsville weekend is not any one restaurant. It is that the Farmers Market moved to McCord Square at 5811 Main Street, and it runs with 70-plus vendors, community groups, food vendors, and live music. For years the market was a nice thing that happened somewhere. Now it happens on the same block as coffee, brunch, and ice cream, which is the whole point of a town center and the reason the town spent a decade building one.
The second change is a routine that did not exist here before. Cars and Coffee runs on select Sunday mornings May through October at McCord Square on Main Street. If you have a kid who likes engines, or a neighbor who does, that is a standing weekend plan that used to require a drive to Zionsville or Carmel.
A realistic summer Saturday in McCordsville now looks like this:
- Coffee at the Crossing in the caboose, walk south into the Square
- Farmers Market on Main Street, produce and a live band in the same block
- Brunch at Maple with the patio open, or a bag from Leo's for later
- Libby's or Rita's on the walk back to the car
That is four stops without moving the car once. A year ago that sentence was not true anywhere in the 46055 ZIP code.
The library branch that will quietly rewire weekday afternoons
The change that will matter most to families is not on the food side. Vernon Township Public Library is on track to open a secondary location on the second floor of the NineStar facility in mid-summer. The building at Fortville has been the only branch for years, which meant a trip east every time a book came due.
The new McCordsville branch is not a small drop-in either. The new 3,000-square-foot McCordsville location will operate cohesively with the main location in Fortville but provide room for amenities the Fortville location lacks, such as study rooms, a program room, and space for unique collections. Patrons can pick up library materials at one location and return them to the other. All the policies will stay the same.
For anyone with school-age kids, that is the sentence to reread. Study rooms and a program space on Main Street, above a coffee shop, walkable from the Farmers Market. The block was designed for weekends. The library is what makes it a weekday habit.
The build-out is still in early innings
The reason a walk through the Square feels partly finished is that it is. McCord Square is already functioning as the town's emerging center, but like many mixed-use developments it is being built out in phases. As additional commercial spaces are occupied and surrounding areas develop, it will continue to evolve into a more complete town center over the next several years, in the words of assistant director of planning Hollie Kinker.
The town's own posture backs that up. The McCordsville Town Council passed a resolution reaffirming its support for the development at its October 21 meeting, as the town looks to finalize plans for Phase 2 and Phase 3 of construction. The project is a partnership between the town of McCordsville, Fishers-based Rebar Development, and Greenfield-based Pride Investment Partners, with construction on the town center beginning in late 2022.
Two things to watch this summer if you like knowing what is coming next. First, the amphitheater. To the west of the apartment buildings, a plot of land is already cleared to construct more green space with an amphitheater, which will sit just in front of the planned new city hall at the westernmost end of the development. Second, a possible town hall siting shift. Town manager Tim Gropp has said Lot 6, between Civic Green and the police station, has been offered to the town at a reasonable rate. The site makes logistical sense because it sits between the two parks, offers additional bathrooms, and would provide overflow parking on nights and weekends and busy times. A town hall between the two green spaces would tighten the whole block considerably.
Financing gives a rough ceiling on the ambition. A master development draw bond has been floated at a maximum of $11.6 million, though that maximum would drop to $8.35 million if the town buys Lot 6. Numbers of that size usually get spread across three or four years of construction, which is a reasonable horizon to expect for the amphitheater, the second-floor library, and whatever tenant lands on Lot 3.
Why this matters if you already own here
Two thoughts for homeowners inside the Mt. Vernon school boundary who have been watching the fence come down.
The first is practical. The town's stated goal, in Kinker's words, is that the destination feels authentic to McCordsville, rather than a collection of national chains. Whether that holds through Phase 2 depends on which tenants sign for the Pavilion outlots and Lot 3. It is worth walking the block once this summer with fresh eyes rather than reading the tenant list on a leasing site.
The second is more of a mindset shift. The reason a place gets called a town, and not a collection of neighborhoods off a state road, is that residents can name where the center is. McCordsville has an answer now. Broadway, Main Street, the caboose to the north, the Civic Green to the west. The Farmers Market is on Saturday. Cars and Coffee is on a Sunday morning. The library opens above NineStar this summer. That is the shape of the place, and the shape is finally close enough to walk.
If you are curious what your home is worth now that the Square is functioning and the amphitheater is next in line, or if you are weighing a move into or out of the 46055 ZIP for reasons that hinge on how the block matures, the team at Reggie Jackson works this market every week. Schedule your free neighborhood consultation and we will walk you through what has actually changed and what it means for your address.
