James Brainard is the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, a principal city in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. Brainard, who first took office January 1, 1996, is currently serving his seventh consecutive four-year term, most recently reelected in 2019. Mayor Brainard is one of Indiana's longest serving mayors. He has led a city whose population has grown from 25,000 in 1996 to 102,000 in 2021. His keynote projects have been the creation of a new downtown called City Center, where a new 1,600-seat concert hall, the Palladium, opened in 2011 as well as two smaller theaters and the redevelopment of the oldest part of town into a new Arts & Design District and purchased park acreage that took Carmel's inventory of public green and open space from 40 to over 1000 acres and more than 225 miles of trails.