getting creative with our streets
TRANSCRIPT
Plenary Session
Getting Creative with Our Streets
Getting Creative with Our Streets
Amanda O’Rourke,8 80 Cities
Plenary Session
Moderator:
Mike Lydon,Street Plans
Juanita Hardy,Tiger Management Consulting
Group
Speakers:
CREATIVE PLACEMAKING BENEFITS & BEST PRACTICES
© Geoff Lyon
Juanita Hardy, Senior Visiting Fellow
Urban Land Institute
ULI UK: Art, Digital Engagement and Urban
Regeneration
September 17, 2018
SAFE STREETS SUMMIT
CREATIVE PLACEMAKING: GETTING CREATIVE WITH OUR STREETSJuanita Hardy, Tiger Management Consulting Group
January 29, 2021
Future Mill Creek Memorial along Brickline Greenway, St. Louis, MO Pavilion at Confluence Park, Houston, TX
21c Museum Hotel, Durham, NC
Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, NYC
Building Wall Mural, Charlotte, NC
21c Museum Hotel, Durham, NC
Skating Rink, Downtown Silver Spring, MD
AGENDA
What is Creative Placemaking?
The Business Case for Creative Placemaking
Optimizing Benefits through Best Practices
Resources
PLACEMAKING
Combining elements of the
built environment in a
compelling way that attracts
people
Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, MO
CREATIVE PLACEMAKINGPlacemaking efforts that bring art and culture in tandem with good design.
Monroe Street Market Art Walk
Washington, DC
Courtesy of The Bozzuto Group
Art & Culture
FoodHealth
Housing
Transp. &
Mobility
Education
Economy
Art &
Culture
Environ. &
Sustain.
FoodHealth
Housing
Transp. &
Mobility
Education
Economy
Environ.
&
Sustain.
*Adapted from Policy Link: “What makes up an equitable community?”
WHAT ARE ATTRIBUTES OF A HEALTHY, EQUITABLE, THRIVING COMMUNITY?
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
“The highest gift that man has is art.”
- Lorraine Hansberry, Playwright
THE ARTS CONTRIBUTE 4.5% ($878B) TO US GDP.
Attendees Spent$31.47 Per Person, Per Event
ARTS DRIVE TOURISM AND REVENUE TO LOCAL BUSINESSES
Source: Americans for the Arts
AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT ARTS ARE IMPORTANT TO THE ECONOMY AND QUALITY OF LIFE.
Source: Americans for the Arts 2018 national survey of 3023 adults conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs
ALL STAKEHOLDERS BENEFIT FROM CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
Improved:
❖ Health outcomes
❖ Social cohesion
❖ Economic outcomes
Gains in:
❖ Tax revenues
❖ Job growth
❖ Public safety
❖ Increased market value
❖ Lower turnover rates
❖ Faster lease up
❖ Higher community buy-in
❖ Faster approval cycle
❖ Market Recognition
Developers + Partners
Government Community
Source: ULI Creative Placemaking Project
Research, 2016-2019
SEATING THAT GIVE SPACE BETWEEN PEOPLETIMES SQUARE, NYC – JUERGEN MAYER
Source: Future City
Source: Future City
SIGNAGE EDUCATE COMMUTERS ABOUT SOCIAL DISTANCING AND SAFE
TRANSIT RIDING PRACTICES. BONNEVILLE TRANSIT CENTER, LAS VEGAS, NV– ASHLEY HAIRSTON DOUGHTY AND MARK SALINAS
Photo Credit: Mikayla Whitmore
Source: Future CityPhoto Credit: Mikayla Whitmore
ARTIST-DESIGNED MASKS HELP PEOPLE OF COLOR CONCERNED ABOUT
RACIAL PROFILING REIMAGINE MASKS AND USE FOR COVID SAFETY. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), SAN FRANCISCO, CA – TOSHA STIMAGE
Courtesy of Smart Growth America
CASE STUDY: BRICKLINE GREENWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO
FUTURE MEMORIAL ON BRICKLINE GREENWAY HONORS LOSS AND HELPS HEAL
A PAINFUL PAST. ST LOUIS, MO – DAMON DAVIS
Courtesy of Great Rivers Greenway
BEST PRACTICE: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
ARTIST DESIGNED FEATURES ON A TRAIL CONNECT COMMUNITIES AND
PROMOTE THE LOCAL ECONOMYTHE RAIL TRAIL, CHARLOTTE, NC - JESSE AND KATEY, THE “MAGIC CARPET” (LEFT) AND “EDNA’S PORCH“
Courtesy of Charlotte Center City Partners
OPTIMIZING BENEFITS - TEN BEST PRACTICES IN CREATIVE PLACEMAKING
▪Begin with the end in mind
▪Bring artists and the community upfront
▪Mine local art and cultural assets
▪Engage local artists
▪Understand and articulate stakeholder benefits
▪Form cross sector partnerships
▪Identify critical skills to deliver
▪Look for early wins
▪Maintain a long view
▪Explore creative financing
Source: ULI Creative Placemaking Project Research, 2016-2019
TBD
CROSSTOWN CONCOURSE, MEMPHIS, TN
Courtesy: Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem, PA
An artist-led and community-led design, which helped transform a Sears
Distribution Center into a mixed use “urban village” anchored around the
concept of art, wellness, and education, was 98% leased upon its opening,
August 2017.
Courtesy of Crosstown Arts
SUGGESTED ARTICLES & PUBLICATIONS ON CREATIVE PLACEMAKING IN REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
Articles (Hardy, Urban Land Magazine)
▪ Best Practices in Creative Placemaking (2017)
▪ The Business Case for Creative Placemaking (2018)
▪ Leveraging Creative Placemaking in Equitable Development (2020)
Publication
▪ Creative Placemaking: Sparking Development with Art and Culture (McCormick, Hardy, and Utter – ULI, 2020)
THANK [email protected]
[email protected] (alternate)
202-423-4923 (mobile)
Baltimore, Maryland City Mural
Join us at our next plenary session:Moving Forward Together: Advancing Safe, Healthy, and Resilient Streets
Thank you!
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Urban Land > Planning & Design > 10 Best Practices for Creative Placemaking
Spearheaded by artist Theaster Gates and the Rebuild Foundation, in partnership with Brinshore Development, the Dorchester Art
+ Housing Collaborative on Chicago’s south side transformed a blighted townhouse development into 32 mixed-income artist
housing units. (© Brinshore Development)
Creative placemaking, an innovation that involves bringing art and culture in tandem with design to thebeginning of a real estate development project, is gaining momentum around the globe, from small ruralcommunities to large urban areas.
South Carolina’s 2017 Rural Summit, for example, sponsored by the state’s department of commerce andheld in March, included a presentation and panel on creative placemaking for summit participants, whoincluded council members, city administrators, planners, and others hungry for knowledge about howcreative placemaking strategies can be used to revitalize their communities.
Of the 11 ULI 2016 Global Awards for Excellence recipients, four projects were selected largely because ofcreative placemaking features that contributed to their success. They were Wynwood Walls in Miami; theStrand American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in SanAntonio; and Daniels Spectrum in Toronto.
Daniels Spectrum, for example, a community cultural hub and part of one of the largest urban revitalizationinitiatives in Toronto, is a multifaceted community event, studio, and performance space withaccompanying oYce space that offers a place for local artists, musicians, and businesses to congregateand formulate new ideas. It has hosted over 800 events and attracted more than 150,000 visitors,contributing to the economic vibrancy of the Regent Park community. The new ACT, with a 285-seattheater, educational facilities, a public lobby and café, and a black-box theater and rehearsal space,transformed the century-old movie theater into a nonpro^t experimental performance space. The revivedtheater, with features that hark back to its past, serves as a key component of the revitalization of adesolate part of San Francisco, and is expected to attract over 100,000 visitors in its ^rst year of operation.(Both award-winning projects are pro^led in this issue, beginning on page 174.)
Grassroots community initiatives like Project Row Houses in Houston transformed 22 crime-plagued“shotgun” houses in the city’s oldest African American neighborhood into a thriving complex that hasgrown to 40 properties and provides space for housing, exhibitions, and other creative enterprises.Similarly, Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative on Chicago’s south side transformed a blightedtownhome development into 32 mixed-income artist housing units (12 public housing, 11 affordable, andnine market-rate) and offers a community center for residents. It is a part of the cultural renaissance of theGreater Grand Crossing community spearheaded by artist Theaster Gates and the Rebuild Foundation, inpartnership with Brinshore Development.
10 Best Practices for Creative PlacemakingBy Juanita HardyApril 26, 2017 Text Size: A A A
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The Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative in Chicago includes a community center for residents. (© Brinshore Development)
These projects have a common theme of leading with art and culture and realizing outcomes that upliftand enliven, attract and connect people, promote health, and catalyze economic development.Implementing creative placemaking successfully, with measurable positive outcomes, can be realized byusing best practices, gleaned from lessons learned on many projects over a long time.
During the discovery phase of a two-year creative placemaking project funded by the Kresge Foundation,as part of ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative, our research has identi^ed ten best practices for projectsuccess.
Begin with the end in mind. Envision what you would like to see—such as artfully designed buildings, aninclusive community, gathering places that promote health—but also what you do not want to see, such asdisplacement of existing residents, lack of diversity, or exclusionary housing. Be clear about motivation andgoals, then engage the right players to think outside of the box to achieve those goals. Set no limits on thepossibilities for combining art and culture with the built environment. For example, New York City’s SugarHill Children’s Museum in Harlem broke with convention by being the ^rst art museum in an affordablehousing complex.
Bring in artists and the community early. Timing is everything. Art and culture need to be central to theproject’s design. Early engagement of these essential resources will facilitate a project that is welldesigned and inclusive and that meets the needs of the larger community. In 2015, ArtPlace Americaawarded six organizations in cities spanning the United States $3 million each to demonstrate the impactof early engagement of arts and culture in community development. Each organization will receive the $3million over a three-year period. ArtPlace engaged PolicyLink to work with them to identify and shareinsights and best practices with the goal to make the grant recipients’ social, physical, and economicplacemaking strategies more inclusive.
“Mine” local art and cultural assets. Understand what jewels exist in the community. Creative placemakingworks best when it is used to amplify local community assets, fostering a sense of pride. Learn about thecommunity’s history and aspirations. Practice radical listening—meaning, keep a laser focus on one ofauthor Stephen Covey’s “seven habits:” seek ^rst to understand. For instance, the Mill Hill arts village inMacon, Georgia, learned after its cultural-asset mapping that many residents like to cook. So, its new artcenter in the renovated auditorium will have a culinary art school.
Engage local artists. Find and recruit artists in the local community, including visual artists, performingartists, poets, writers, musicians, designers, chefs, and other creative types. Engaging local artists will helpbuild buy-in. It is hoped there will be no need to ^nd talent elsewhere. The Macon Arts Alliance learned thishard lesson after bringing artists from outside the state to Mill Hill for an art initiative. It created anatmosphere of distrust, leading the alliance to rescind its action and rebuild the relationship. Consult localarts organizations and local and state government art councils to ^nd local artists. For example, in theWashington, D.C., metro area, the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is a nonpro^t group dedicated topromoting the careers of artists and boasts a membership of thousands of local artists. Local art councilsinclude the District of Columbia Commission on Arts and Humanities, the Arts and Humanities Council ofMontgomery County (Maryland), and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
Understand and articulate stakeholder beneJts. Explore how art and culture can contribute to both thesocial and economic vitality of a project. Be prepared to discuss bene^ts from various points of view.Focus on community-driven outcomes and what is meaningful to locals, but also focus on the hard factsneeded to sell the project to private-sector investors and others. For example, the community may beinterested in the project’s impact on reducing crime or providing more activities for youth and seniors,while developers may need to quantify the project’s impact on accelerating lease-ups or reducing projectcosts.
Form cross-sector partnerships, including artists, community members, and public- and private-sectororganizations. Having local community organizations engaged is key along with the involvement of localgovernment, philanthropy, and other nonpro^t partners. The Mill Hill Arts project had a variety of local,state, and federal partners, including the Macon Arts Alliance, the Urban Development Authority, Macon–Bibb County, local hospitals, the White House Strong Cities Strong Communities initiative, the NationalEndowment for the Arts (NEA), the Knight Foundation, and others.
Identify the critical skills needed to deliver on project goals and outcomes. In addition to the skillsprovided by designers, architects, and artists, what other skills are needed? Collaboration is critical to thesuccess of a project. Identify which skills are needed, match needs to the people within the group who
Related ArticlesApplications Open for 2021 ULI Hines StudentCompetition–EuropeNovember 30, 2020ULI and Hines, the international real estate ^rm, haveannounced the opening of the 2021 ULI Hines StudentCompetition–Europe, a team challenge for universityand business school students from across the regionthat tests their skills in applying their knowledge of allaspects of real estate and land use in a practical casestudy. Said Lisette van Doorn, chief executive of ULIEurope, “Creating and sustaining thriving communitiesis at the heart of ULI’s mission, and to successfullyachieve this it is especially important that we attractand retain the best and most diverse talent to ourindustry to support us in what we do.”
Solution File: A City Center at the FringeNovember 16, 2020A public/private partnership in Surrey, British Columbia,builds a mixed-use point city center near Vancouver.
Leveraging Creative Placemaking in EquitableDevelopmentNovember 4, 2020Early engagement with the community and inclusion ofculturally signi^cant art can create developments thatbene^t the existing community and lead to greaterreturn on investment.
From left: Mabelle Ma, Ariel Shtarkman, Louise Kavanagh, panel
moderator Richard Price, Carol Kim.
have the necessary skills, and identify gaps that need to be met by recruiting new team members with newskills. Also make teams intergenerational by including youth and senior members. Your project teamshould reuect the inclusive nature of the project vision and goals.
Look for early wins to generate excitement, visibility, and buy-in. For example, use pop-ups to draw peoplein and community gatherings to gain engagement. A good example is the Hall in the Tenderloin communityof San Francisco. This pop-up culinary art project provides stalls for six food vendors, a bar, and freemeeting space for local nonpro^t groups, while the developer awaits entitlement to build a mixed-use retailand residential project with affordable housing on that site.
Maintain a long view. Don’t stop when the goals of the built environment are met. Consider programmingthat keeps the community engaged and the place alive and exciting. Monroe Street Market in NortheastWashington, D.C., a $250 million mixed-use transit-oriented development, engaged a nonpro^t artsorganization, CulturalDC, to manage its arts walk and relationship with artists in its 27 affordable artiststudios on the ground uoor of two buildings in its complex. CulturalDC, with local nonpro^t Dance Place,supports Third Thursdays open artists’ studios, dance, and other programs on an ongoing basis.
Pursue creative Jnancing. Where there is a will, there is a way. Money can come from unforeseen,unexpected places. Bethlehem Steel Stacks, the site of a former steel mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,transformed into a sprawling art center, was funded through revenues from the local casino, which is alsoon the site of the old mill. Funding for the Harlem Sugar Hill affordable housing and museum complex inthis New York City neighborhood was pieced together from 13 funding sources, including private lenders,philanthropy, low-income housing tax credits, HOME funds, and new markets tax credits. If your vision isthe right one, for the right reasons, with appropriate stakeholder bene^ts, the money will come. Persevere.
Creative placemaking strategies have been used successfully across many dimensions in the builtenvironment. Housing and public spaces have been highlighted here, but creative placemaking can also beapplied to transportation, health, infrastructure, and environmental systems. All stakeholders—communityresidents and businesses, government, developers, and other partners—stand to bene^t. Creativeplacemaking strategies, when properly applied, can help differentiate a real estate development project, asULI’s Global Awards for Excellence program demonstrates, while simultaneously addressing social,economic, environmental, and other challenges.
Many examples of successful creative placemaking initiatives exist, but there also are examples of failedones or ones that have fallen short of meeting intended goals or outcomes. Using best practices hasproved to differentiate the most successful projects, and has helped revitalize and foster healthy,sustainable communities. This is certainly a gain not only for affected communities, but also for everyone.Indeed, it is a gain for the greater global community of which we are all a part. UL
Juanita Hardy is senior visiting fellow for creative placemaking at ULI. Hardy has over 43 years of business
experience, including 31 years with IBM and ten years with Right Management, a global executive coaching
and human capital development Wrm. She also has been active for over 30 years as a collector of Wne art, a
trustee on national nonproWt art boards—ArTrain USA (former) and ArtTable—and is a former executive
director of CulturalDC, a Washington, D.C.–based nonproWt art organization serving artists, nonproWt art
organizations, developers, and property owners.
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Letting go of the pursuit for perfection, speaking upin the workplace, and developing strongrelationships with mentors were among thestrategies for success that women real estateleaders shared at a discussion on the gender gapwithin the real estate industry in March that servedto launch the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI)chapter in Hong Kong.
The event was a milestone for WLI, bringing thetotal number of chapters in ULI’s district andnational councils around the world to 30.
In her opening address, Carrie Lam, the chiefsecretary for administration of the Hong Kong
government, noted the long relationship that she has enjoyed with ULI. She also made light of MargaretThatcher’s famous remark, “If you want something done, ask a woman,” noting that if that was true, shewould be in “in deep trouble” since she is the only female principal oYcial in the Hong Kong government.
Lam expressed optimism about women playing a greater role within Hong Kong real estate and the uniqueposition WLI has in connecting and supporting them. “With so many exciting projects going on here inHong Kong and a fantastic pool of women leaders in the industry, I’m sure the WLI will have a great start inembracing inclusivity in leadership roles for women,” she said.
Lam’s speech was followed by a presentation by Denise Tan, director and cofounder of Christine Capital,
ULI Hong Kong’s WLI Chapter Launches with RobustDiscussion of Strategies for Career AdvancementBy Archana PyatiApril 27, 2017 Text Size: A A A
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Ms. Carrie Lam (second from left) pictured with ULI North Asia
Chairman Raymond Chow and ULI Asia PaciWc Chief Executive
John Fitzgerald.
panel2
The panel of high-performing women in real estate shared their
experiences balancing career advancement with family
responsibilities.
who reminded the audience of the WLI’s mission—to raise the visibility and number of women inleadership roles in the real estate and landdevelopment industry. She presented ^ndings fromWomen in Leadership in the Land Use and RealEstate Industry, a research study conducted by theglobal WLI on the state of women in leadershiproles within real estate based upon acomprehensive survey of more than 1,200 femaleULI members from the United States.
One of the survey’s key ^ndings is that femalesmake up 25 percent of ULI members in the UnitedStates, but among ULI’s members who are CEOs,only 14 percent are women. Of these women, 93percent are leading ^rms with fewer than 100employees. “It’s rare that women are leadingorganizations and when they are leadingorganizations, they are small organizations,” Tansaid.
The report suggested several strategies to overcome the gap in gender equality, which include a mix offormal and informal approaches. Formal approaches, which are more policy driven, include training anddevelopment, human resource practices, and workplace uexibility, while informal policies are more aboutdaily work life, and include encouraging women to take on challenging job assignments and promotingworkplace coaching by mentors and senior leaders.
“The most effective steps that organizations can take is a blend of informal and formal approaches andstart changing how work is done on a day-to-day basis,” Tan said.
Four women who have made it to the top of theirindustry took part in a panel discussion, moderatedby Richard Price, CBRE Global Investors Asia’s CEOand ULI board member and trustee. LouiseKavanagh, director, fund manager at Invesco RealEstate, stressed the importance a good mentormade to her career progression. “When I came toAsia in 2007, I had a very strong advocate whohelped me progress through the organization,pushing me into leadership roles, allowing me toshow my strengths.”
Ariel Shtarkman, founder of Orca Capital and asenior content advisory with ULI, agreed on theimportance of advocates. “I’ve had amazingmentors throughout my career both internally andexternally, who guided me,” she said. “I ^nd thatnetworking, especially as a startup, is crucial forsuccess.”
Some panelists said that women may be holdingthemselves back by not speaking up and making their needs known. Mabelle Ma, director, developmentand valuations at Swire Properties, said combining a family and a career was a struggle for her. “I thoughtabout resigning when my son was young because of my diYculties in managing a work/family balance,”she said. “But there is a way out. You have to be open with your company and let them know that you arestruggling. You have to learn to say no—to your company, and sometimes to your kids.”
Women aiming for perfection with men being happy with “good enough” was another theory the paneloffered on why women do not advance as quickly as men. “I think men are okay with their work being ‘goodenough,’ which allows them time to go off and network,” Price suggested.
One of the ^nal insights over women opting to step back when they have families came from Carol Kim,senior managing director, investor relations and business development at Blackstone. She believed thatwomen who want families need to look at their career as a long game. “My career has not taken a straightand predictable path,” she said. “I took certain side steps because of family. But I see my career as a longgame, and ultimately, as the report shows with the salary gap disappearing when men and women are atthe later stages of their career, we get there in the end.”
Reporting provided by BlueCurrent Group, a public relations Wrm based in Hong Kong.
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Three Projects Helping to House Seattle’s GrowingPopulationBy Kathleen McCormickApril 27, 2017 Text Size: A A A
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(Garrett Parker/Unsplash)
Seattle developers are trying to keep pace with the demand for urban living in Seattle. An explosion of newmultifamily projects includes the following:
True North in South Lake Union. In 2014, Seattle’s Holland Partner Group opened a residential project,located just two blocks from Lake Union and its multiuse trail, designed for nature lovers, outdooradventurers, and ^tness gurus.
“Northwest lifestyle” amenities for the seven-story 286-unit luxury building include a bouldering wall forclimbers, a ^tness center, a trailhead room with maps and books, and a Bike Lounge workshop with standsfor bike tune-ups and a work table for waxing skis and snowboards.
The project also has four terraces with grilling stations, communal dining tables, a pizza oven, hammocks,lounge areas, and a ^replace; there is also a ground-level restaurant.
The True North apartment project lends out kayaks, partners with an out^tter for deals on outdoor gear,and provides storage for bikes, paddleboards, and other equipment.
12th Avenue Arts on Capitol Hill. On the affordable side, developer Capitol Hill Housing and Seattle’s SMRArchitects transformed a 29,000-square-foot (2,700 sq m) surface parking lot into a neighborhood-anchoring cultural center that mixes arts, housing, and public-safety facilities. The 2015 ULI Global Awardsfor Excellence winner offers 88 affordable apartments; 20,000 square feet (1,900 sq m) of new culturalspace and arts-related commercial space, including two professional theaters; and 115 secure belowgradeparking stalls for the Seattle Police Department.
Capitol Hill TOD. Portland-based Gerding Edlen is the master developer for a planned multiblock mixed-useand mixed-income redevelopment above the new Capitol Hill light-rail station. The project will include 430housing units and 30,000 square feet (2,800 sq m) of retail space connected by a large transit plaza.
One of the seven-story buildings, codeveloped with Capitol Hill Housing, will have a community center and110 units of housing affordable for tenants earning 60 percent of the area median income. The other threewill have grounduoor retail space and 320 market-rate apartments, with 20 percent of the units set asidefor lower-income households through a city tax abatement program for affordable housing. Retail spacewill include a grocery store and a market hall for local businesses; the Broadway Farmers Market will be setup on the plaza. A daycare center is also planned.
Seattle’s transit agency, Sound Transit, is groundleasing the site for 99 years for a reported $22 million.Design and construction costs are estimated at $180 million, according to Gerding Edlen partner JillSherman. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in late 2019.
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Urban Land > Planning & Design > The Business Case for Creative Placemaking
An arts festival in Library Square in Salt Lake City. (Emily Sargent/Visit Salt Lake)
Miami Beach has branded itself as an art city. It is also at the forefront of municipalities coping with the
need to improve their resilience in the face of rising seawater and severe storms. But must dealing with
such critical needs detract from the city’s celebrated artistic Eair? That is a question many communities
across the country are wrestling with as they seek to improve their quality of life and compete for new
residents and businesses.
Miami Beach, for example, has many historic districts, including its famed Art Deco District, which has the
largest collection of art deco buildings in the United States. The city annually hosts Art Basel, a global art
fair that pumps an estimated $500 million into the local economy during the Orst week of December.
In addition to being an art city, Miami Beach has the opportunity to brand itself as a resilient city. Miami
Beach spends millions of dollars annually on stormwater management using an outdated,
underperforming stormwater gravity system. Now, it is in the process of replacing that with an ecologically
sophisticated pump system estimated to cost over $400 million.
While in Miami Beach during April preparing for a ULI Advisory Services panel reviewing the city’s
stormwater management and climate adaptation plan, I saw a monstrous generator—nearly the size of a
Volkswagen Beetle, located adjacent to a sidewalk and easily viewed by passersby—designed to pump
water from Eooded neighborhoods.
What if such utilitarian infrastructure were designed with an artist’s help? And why should that not be
standard practice? Such sensitivity to aesthetics could help address concerns expressed by Miami Beach
residents about maintaining their cultural identity and quality of life as generators and pumps are being
installed in their neighborhoods.
Just six weeks earlier, I had served on an Advisory Services panel addressing concerns about a food desert
in Montbello, a culturally diverse, low- to middle-income neighborhood in Denver with more than 34,000
residents. Community leaders are planning an art and cultural hub anchored by a local fresh food market
and connected via pedestrian and bicycle paths to the neighborhood’s plethora of parks and urban
gardens. This art and cultural hub is a highly visible project supported by the Kresge Foundation’s FreshLo
initiative and the Colorado Health Foundation.
Creative placemaking, a strategy that integrates art and cultural interventions throughout the development
process, beginning at the pre-construction and design phase, was central to the recommendations
proposed by the advisory panels for both Miami Beach and Montbello. A review of these two panels, ULI
technical assistance panels, and other member-engaged initiatives in recent years reveals examples of
how different strategies for creative placemaking can add value across many components of the built
The Business Case for Creative PlacemakingBy Juanita Hardy
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environment, enhancing stakeholder beneOts and promoting healthy communities.
Activate Houston Street, San Antonio
Houston Street in San Antonio has long been overshadowed by the River Walk—the place to go for food,
scenic strolls, art, and entertainment. But things are changing on Houston Street. This part of San Antonio’s
historic downtown Center City is under-going a transformation representing over $1 billion of development.
The Activate Houston Street campaign—launched by Centro San Antonio, a 501(c)(3) community
development corporation with the mission “to mobilize people and resources to build a more prosperous
downtown”—was charged with creating a placemaking action plan for the Houston Street corridor. Activate
Houston Street is supported by the development community, including ULI members, who have active or
planned development projects along Houston Street and in the Center City. San Antonio’s Center City
Development & Operations Department (CCDO) is an implementation partner and champion of the
campaign.
The effort focuses on six blocks of Houston Street, beginning at the historic Alamo on the east and
extending west to San Saba Street. Centro has deOned four discrete districts along this stretch—the Alamo,
Performing Arts, Innovation, and Zona Cultural—each with distinct features and character. Surrounding
development includes a world-class urban park on the 40-acre (16 ha) Hemisfair site, where the 1968
World’s Fair was held; mixed-use development designed to lure suburbanites to downtown residential
living; and improvements to the San Pedro Creek, abutting Houston Street, including creation of the San
Pedro Creek Culture Park, a linear park modeled after the River Walk.
In January, Centro spearheaded a charrette for San Antonio residents to imagine the possibilities for
Houston Street. ULI was an event sponsor and I was invited to give opening remarks about my
observations, having toured Houston Street and several sites, including the Pearl mixed-use development,
formerly the Pearl Brewery, and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. Both developments received a
ULI Global Award for Excellence. Local chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) produced a
summary report, and among the top ten ideas identiOed in the summary, six were creative placemaking
interventions.
These ideas include activating storefronts with creative pop-ups (temporary sites ranging from displays
and exhibitions to cafés and artisan shops); developing clear and compelling wayOnding; establishing a
performing arts district; introducing light, shade, and art into the streetscape; and improving connections to
the River Walk and San Pedro Creek Culture Park while enhancing the visibility of cultural assets on
Houston Street and activating alleys and crosswalks. Preparation for the charrette was guided by a 2017
study conducted by the International Downtown Association (IDA), which outlined proposed actions to
activate Houston that reEect the needs of properties and adjacent neighborhoods.
The renaissance of Houston Street and the surrounding area represents a large economic opportunity for
San Antonians.
Already, the San Antonio River Improvements Project has resulted in a $384 million investment through a
partnership that includes the city, Bexar County (of which San Antonio is the county seat), the San Antonio
River Authority (SARA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the San Antonio River Foundation.
Improvements, completed in 2013, included Eood control, ecosystem restoration, recreational upgrades,
and public art. A $71 million investment in one of the river improvement projects completed in 2009 was
found to have delivered an annual economic impact of $139 million, according to a 2014 study conducted
by Steve Niven and sponsored by the city, SARA, and the Paseo del Rio Association.
Each of the four districts along Houston Street has major development projects planned or underway. In
the Zona Cultural district, for example, the city, in partnership with the county, Texas Public Radio, and La
Familia Cortez, plan to restore the historic Alameda Theater to its former glory. Completed in 1949 as a
Mexican American entertainment venue, it was the largest venue of its kind dedicated to Spanish-language
Olms and performing arts. Major artists from the United States, Spain, Mexico, and other Latin American
countries performed there. The theater will be transformed into a multimedia live performing arts and Olm
center featuring the American/Latino multicultural story.
Nearby, the San Pedro Culture Park, a project primarily funded by Bexar County and managed by SARA, is
transforming a downtown drainage ditch into a linear park and providing a recreational public space
designed as a Eood-control project able to contain 100-year-level Eoods anticipated for downtown San
Antonio. One phase is scheduled for completion in 2020, and design for a future phase is underway.
According to park leadership, once fully completed, the San Pedro Creek Culture Park is expected to spur
an economic impact totaling $1.5 billion.
Historic sites such as the Alamo—designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational,
ScientiOc, and Cultural Organization—and Casa Navarro, the home of José Antonio Navarro, one of two
native-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, are being or have been preserved and
improved. The Alamo, for example, in addition to repair, restoration, and conservation activities, will get a
new museum that features an expansive exhibit on the Texas Revolution. Casa Navarro underwent a $1
million restoration project in 2012 and in 2017 was named a National Historic Landmark.
Centro took the right approach, deploying a best practice: engaging the community early through the
charrette to let residents help shape—and be a part of—the exciting change happening there.
North Carolina Triangle Creative Placemaking Transit Workshop
The three main counties comprising the North Carolina Research Triangle region—Wake, Durham, and
Orange—are embarking on initiatives to upgrade their transit systems. Each county has unique projects in
different stages of rollout.
Wake County, for example, will implement bus rapid transit, improved bus service, and commuter rail;
Durham and Orange counties are in the design phase for a light-rail system. Residents in each of the
counties agreed to tax themselves to pay for these infrastructure enhancements. The Wake County transit
Related ArticlesApplications Open for 2021 ULI Hines StudentCompetition–EuropeNovember 30, 2020
ULI and Hines, the international real estate Orm, have
announced the opening of the 2021 ULI Hines Student
Competition–Europe, a team challenge for university
and business school students from across the region
that tests their skills in applying their knowledge of all
aspects of real estate and land use in a practical case
study. Said Lisette van Doorn, chief executive of ULI
Europe, “Creating and sustaining thriving communities
is at the heart of ULI’s mission, and to successfully
achieve this it is especially important that we attract
and retain the best and most diverse talent to our
industry to support us in what we do.”
Solution File: A City Center at the FringeNovember 16, 2020
A public/private partnership in Surrey, British Columbia,
builds a mixed-use point city center near Vancouver.
Leveraging Creative Placemaking in EquitableDevelopmentNovember 4, 2020
Early engagement with the community and inclusion of
culturally signiOcant art can create developments that
beneOt the existing community and lead to greater
return on investment.
plan alone represents a $2.3 billion investment over the Orst ten years of implementation.
What if the three transit organizations collaborated to explore how creative placemaking could be
integrated into their transit processes, improve the overall transit experience, and enhance bottom-line
beneOts of the transit enhancements for all stakeholders? This topic was explored in August 2017 at a
three-day creative placemaking workshop, an event supported by the Kresge Foundation, which provided
two years of funding for ULI’s Building Healthy Places Creative Placemaking project. The workshop was
attended by ULI members and experts in transit-oriented development, community engagement, design,
and creative placemaking.
Workshop participants said integration of creative placemaking throughout the transit design and planning
process likely would offer many advantages. All three counties are trying to enhance their transit systems
to cope with exponential population growth. The need to balance ridership, promote economic
development, and enhance transit access and walkability, especially in historically underserved areas, is a
key challenge.
Creative placemaking at and between transit stops could lower barriers to using transit by making the
experience more attractive, authentic, and culturally relevant, workshop participants said. It also could help
address equity issues by, for example, establishing uniform standards applicable to all stations, including
those in neighborhoods that had been underserved by bus transit.
Participants developed recommendations for four existing or future station sites: a light-rail station at
Buchanan Boulevard in Durham, a bus rapid transit station at Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard and Hillsborough Street in Chapel Hill, a bus rapid transit station at South Wilmington Street in
Garner, and the new multimodal Union Station in downtown Raleigh, the state capital. These sites should
serve as prototypes for regionwide enhancements, workshop panelists said. They identiOed the strengths
and shortcomings of each site and developed site-speciOc recommendations aimed at enhancing transit
access, aesthetics, safety, physical health, community connectedness and well-being, and economic
development, among other priorities.
At the proposed Buchanan Boulevard station, for instance, panelists recommended transforming a historic
but blighted warehouse slated for demolition so it could serve as a community gathering place with local
retail businesses that would attract visitors and promote economic activity. They also proposed the
preservation of an existing mural of Pauli Murray (1910–1985), an African American civil rights activist,
women’s rights activist, lawyer, Episcopal priest, and author beloved by the neighborhood. Panelists
recommended adding pedestrian and bike paths, wayOnding signs that would inform people about the
neighborhood’s culture and history, and murals below the nearby Buchanan underpass, enhancing the
aesthetics of the surrounding area.
Recommendations at the other three sites included ways to preserve and enhance cultural assets, promote
safety at station stops with high rates of pedestrian accidents, and avoid displacement of residents and
businesses amid gentriOcation and the rising expenses precipitated by transit-oriented development. The
breadth and depth of recommendations demonstrated how creative placemaking principles and strategies
could add tremendous value and increase the returns on this over–$2 billion investment, to be paid through
the resident-supported transit tax.
Library Square in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, speaking at a mayor’s roundtable hosted by the Rose Center for
Public Leadership in Land Use at ULI’s 2018 Spring Meeting in Detroit, said she wants her home to be
known as an art and cultural city.
Salt Lake City has many artistic, cultural, and natural jewels. These include Library Square, situated in the
middle of the Civic Center, with Washington Square and its municipal and county buildings to the west and
the public safety building to the east. Library Square takes its name from the main branch building of the
city’s public library system, a dramatic structure opened in 2003 and designed by Canadian architect
Moshe Safdie with curved lines, glass walls, and Eoor-to-ceiling views of the square. Also, on the square is
the Leonardo, a museum that connects Leonardo da Vinci’s Oelds of science, technology, and art to the
public through its extensive artifacts and innovative exhibitions and programs.
The square serves as a large public plaza where the city’s largest summer festivals are held. Along one
side of the plaza are smartly designed stalls that can accommodate small food and retail vendors. Replete
with cobblestones and fountains, the plaza is surrounded by green space, all appealing to the
contemplative and playful aspects of visitors. It is perfect in every sense, except for one shortcoming:
excluding the festivals, at any given time of day or season it is nearly devoid of people.
In June 2017, ULI Utah assembled a technical assistance panel made up of planning, design, creative
placemaking, and development professionals to identify the challenges and opportunities presented by the
plaza and come up with remedies that could help make it a more vibrant, thriving place that would attract
residents and visitors and breathe more economic life into the area.
Panelists identiOed several factors contributing to the underuse of the plaza, including insutcient attention
to weather protection, seating, program activation, campus maintenance, transit access, and
connectedness between the library and the museum. Strategies were suggested to address these
shortfalls and make Library Square a cultural hub of the city—not only providing better connections
between the library and the Leonardo, but also attracting other arts and cultural organizations, such as the
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and the Utah Film Center, both of which are seeking new homes.
The panel recommended that the city hire an events manager responsible for ongoing programming and
activation of the plaza, such as a seasonal farmers market, art fairs, Olm presentations, and musical
performances. Library Square has “some good bones,” panelists noted, and said the proposed
architectural, transit infrastructure, and creative placemaking interventions could make it a more joyful
place and an art and cultural center that could contribute to the economic vibrancy of the city.
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio. (©Mark Menjivar)
Placemaking: Component and Strategy
These examples demonstrate how art and culture interventions—components of creative placemaking—
can add value to many aspects of the built environment, including transportation systems, parks and public
spaces, environmental and stormwater management systems, and food preparation sites and places
offering access to healthy food. Creative placemaking is both a component of a healthy, resilient, equitable,
thriving community and a strategy to help create one.
Research shows that creative placemaking provides triple-bottom-line beneOts—social, environmental, and
Onancial—for all stakeholders. Anecdotally, it can be seen that communities enjoy enhanced health, well-
being, and economic outcomes, and that local governments see gains in tax revenues that allow them to
enhance resident services, as well as employment growth and improved public safety. Developers and their
partners have reported higher market values, lower turnover rates, faster lease-ups, increased community
buy-in, faster approval cycles, and enhanced branding and market recognition.
In a July 12, 2018, Washington Post article about the growing presence of art in real estate projects, Brian
Coulter, chief development otcer for JBG Smith in Chevy Chase, Maryland, expressed the company’s deep
commitment to creativity, which is often manifested as murals, sculptures, and creative spaces that
differentiate the company’s buildings and surrounding neighborhoods from others. “If we do it right, the art
Ores all our cylinders: people want to pay to live in our buildings,” Coulter said. “It’s good for our investors,
and our company is successful.”
It makes good business sense to integrate creative placemaking with other development best practices
from the start of—and throughout—the project life cycle.
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Urban Land > Planning & Design > Leveraging Creative Placemaking in Equitable Development
Early engagement with the community and inclusion of culturally signi5cant art can create developmentsthat bene5t the existing community and lead to greater return on investment.
ULI’s commitment to equitable development is especially important now as recent events spotlight vastinequalities in the United States.
At the time of this writing, more than 189,000 American lives have been lost to the virus causing COVID-19.A disproportionate number of those deaths are among African Americans, many living in poverty andconsidered at high risk due to poor living conditions. Protests that erupted across the country after thedeath in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a White police oScer, were powered in part byanger about systemic conditions that for generations have suppressed the economic mobility—andtherefore quality of life—of many people of color.
Advancing equitable development—aimed at reducing disparities and promoting healthy, vibrant places—can have a signiUcant positive impact on some of the social challenges of our times. Also important is thatequitable development makes good business sense. Studies have shown that regions that value equity andinclusion outperform those that do not and sustain healthy rates of economic growth.
Leaders in real estate development are key contributors to and beneUciaries of healthy economic growth.Equitable development projects that appeal to the senses of a diverse community often employ place-based strategies that encompass art and culture—an approach known as creative placemaking. Even intimes of crisis and division, art and culture interventions provide a platform that facilitates communicationamong diverse groups and across perspectives.
COVID-19 and social unrest are shaping change for the future. There is no doubt that real estatedevelopment projects with art and culture features that have been properly vetted for Unancial viability willyield a healthy return on investment.
What analysts have found, and weeks of national protests punctuate, is that equity and inclusion are amandate for successful cities and places.
Designing and creating inclusive and equitable places that embrace everyone will help heal centuries ofracial injustices and slow or halt displacement that pushes people out of their communities because theycan no longer afford them. We do not want to live in a world where the aXuent enjoy the amenities ofvibrant urban centers and everyone else lives on the edges.
The negative implications of this segmented conUguration for economic growth, public safety, health,environmental sustainability, and social cohesion are vast, some of which are playing out in the turbulenttimes of 2020. Art and culture enable communication and aid in Unding common ground amongcommunity groups. Art is also an enabler for inclusion, identifying cultural relevance and reZecting it inplace. Art helps inspire, inform, and engage.
Urban areas will continue to thrive, albeit in different ways. The pandemic has heightened awarenessregarding the value of and need for public spaces. Such spaces that simultaneously enable socialdistancing and foster social connections will be in high demand, and artfully designed public spaces willhelp address this need.
Retail shopping is not going away, even in the face of growing e-commerce. This point was made bypresenter Lara Marrero of Gensler during a 2020 ULI Spring Meeting webinar titled “The Purpose of Placeand Retail’s Great Transformation.” Consumers will still yearn for face-to-face interactions with some retailofferings being more diScult to access or evaluate online, and people will also seek the experience that theretail store engenders. The same is true for food and beverage businesses—restaurants, coffee shops,markets, and the like. All will be attractive for the experiences they offer in a safe, COVID-responsible way.Creative placemaking can help deUne these experiences.
Real estate developers committed to responsible land use can lead the way in creating more equitable,inclusive, economically thriving communities. Those with a demonstrated track record will expand theirbrand and business and create better cities and places for all of us.
Two real estate development projects led by ULI members illuminate how creative placemaking strategiescan be leveraged to achieve the goals of equitable development and why that is good business from whichall stakeholders—developers, the community, government entities, and others—beneUt.
Leveraging Creative Placemaking in EquitableDevelopmentBy Juanita HardyNovember 4, 2020 Text Size: A A A
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A rendering of the proposed stadium for the North Carolina Football Club in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Gensler)
Downtown South, Raleigh, North Carolina
Downtown South is an ambitious vision calling for the transformation of 133 acres (54 ha) of largelyundeveloped land one mile (1.6 km) south of downtown Raleigh into a $2 billion mixed-use residential,retail, oSce, and entertainment center.
Downtown South is planned as an exciting gateway to the state capital, welcoming vehicle traSc alongSouth Saunders Street from Interstate 40 and other points south. A central feature of the entertainmentcenter is a 20,000-seat soccer stadium, which could host a professional soccer team, facilitated by theefforts of the North Carolina Football Club. The entertainment center would also accommodate a widearray of other sports and entertainment, including festivals, concerts, and college sports.
A dramatic natural water resource, Walnut Creek, bisects the site, inviting creation of a walkable andbikeable greenway along its banks and enabling access to downtown amenities such as galleries andmuseums, restaurants, shops, and other popular nearby sites, such as the State Farmers Market and the308-acre (125 ha) Dorothea Dix Park. Bordering this area to the east is a largely African Americancommunity and to the south a largely white community, with each holding varying views and levels ofreceptivity to the project vision.
Site developer Kane Realty Corporation, in collaboration with the North Carolina Football Club, engaged ULIto convene an Advisory Services panel in August 2019 to answer questions about the feasibility andimplications of the Downtown South plans.
At the heart of several questions was equitable development—how to develop the site so it would bringneeded jobs, growth, and amenities to the surrounding neighborhoods, preserve cultural heritage, andavoid negative impacts of gentriUcation such as displacement. An underlying desire was to addresshistorical inequities that had contributed to the disinvestment of African American neighborhoods in thearea.
To address these questions, ULI recruited panelists with diverse skills and expertise, including marketanalysis, urban planning, and real estate development, as well as those with expertise in creativeplacemaking and community engagement. (This author was a panel member.)
ULI’s recommendations conUrmed that Downtown South represents many positive implications for the cityand surrounding neighborhoods. Because most new development in Raleigh has been to the west of thecity and there has been little development to the south, Downtown South could provide an impressivesouthern gateway to downtown and the catalyst for other development in nearby neighborhoods.
Raleigh, one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, is attractive to both millennials and businessesbecause of its long and distinctive list of educational institutions, as well as its affordable cost of living andpro-business environment. The stadium could be an anchor that attracts visitors, residents, andbusinesses. The entertainment center concept could be enhanced, the panel recommended, by an e-sportsfacility that could be created through a collaboration with the extensive existing gaming resources in thelocal business and university community.
While applauding the Downtown South vision, the panel advised that the vision be more expansive, lookingbeyond the development itself to encompass surrounding neighborhoods. The panel recommended aholistic approach that celebrates the history of south and southeast Raleigh and acknowledges historicalchallenges that have contributed to the economic disparity among neighborhoods. The panelrecommended that a community investment structure be put in place deUning how southsideneighborhoods would beneUt from the anticipated economic growth from development of DowntownSouth, including more jobs, more affordable housing, and improved neighborhood amenities such as healthcenters, food access, and art and cultural assets.
The panel also suggested that a comprehensive placemaking and branding plan be developed, leveragingart and engaging neighborhoods to create a shared vision and deUne a brand representing DowntownSouth and all southside neighborhoods. This brand could be represented on historical placards placed ineach neighborhood to celebrate the unique history of each community. This plan could include artfulwayUnding, public art in open spaces, and a cultural heritage trail.
Parts of the development site could be employed for interim uses before and during project construction,such as popup art installations, concerts, and fairs—events that would attract people and build awareness,
Related ArticlesApplications Open for 2021 ULI Hines StudentCompetition–EuropeNovember 30, 2020ULI and Hines, the international real estate Urm, haveannounced the opening of the 2021 ULI Hines StudentCompetition–Europe, a team challenge for universityand business school students from across the regionthat tests their skills in applying their knowledge of allaspects of real estate and land use in a practical casestudy. Said Lisette van Doorn, chief executive of ULIEurope, “Creating and sustaining thriving communitiesis at the heart of ULI’s mission, and to successfullyachieve this it is especially important that we attractand retain the best and most diverse talent to ourindustry to support us in what we do.”
Solution File: A City Center at the FringeNovember 16, 2020A public/private partnership in Surrey, British Columbia,builds a mixed-use point city center near Vancouver.
Three Exemplary Real Estate Projects Announced asWinners of 2020 ULI Europe Awards for ExcellenceNovember 2, 2020The inaugural ULI Europe Awards for Excellence, whichrecognize outstanding urban development projects inthe Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, honor twoprojects in the Netherlands and one in South Africa.The jury formally recognized Uve additional projectswith special mentions.
excitement, and momentum. The ideas for these events, driven by neighborhood input, could be expansiveand innovative.
Recognizing that some will resist change or fear the negative effects of gentriUcation (such asdisplacement), the panel recommended developing a comprehensive communications and engagementplan to combat these concerns. This plan should be aimed at ensuring that neighborhoods are involved inshaping outcomes, building trust, and maintaining transparency throughout the development of DowntownSouth.
Guided by panel recommendations, Kane Realty hired APCO Worldwide, an advisory and advocacycommunications consulting Urm, to develop that engagement plan. The head of APCO’s Raleighoperations, Courtney Crowder, grew up in southeast Raleigh, remained deeply connected to the community,and is highly thought of by many of its residents.
“Courtney is deeply embedded in a wide range of causes in the community, including economicdevelopment, health care, education, public safety, affordable housing, and the arts,” says APCO chiefexecutive oScer Brad Staples. Crowder’s leadership is helping build trust in the Downtown South projectamong community members, especially in the largely African American community where he grew up.
Though somewhat slowed by COVID-19, the community engagement work is well underway. As KaneRealty awaits zoning approval for the Urst phase of development, residents are expected to weigh in onhow development of Downtown South can have a positive impact on their neighborhoods. Construction isexpected to start in mid-2021.
Rendering of the Brickline Greenway, which would transform St. Louis by connecting communities in all directions via a 20-mile(32 km) walkable, bikeable path that meanders through as many as 17 neighborhoods. (Great Rivers Greenway)
John Kane, chief executive oScer and chairman of Kane Realty, has a stellar reputation in the city. He wasdescribed as kind, thoughtful, and sensitive to the needs of the community by many people interviewedduring the panel’s day of interviews with local residents, businesspeople, educators, and politicians. Hishope is for an equitable and inclusive Downtown South and its surrounding neighborhoods, and he “walksthe talk.” Kane Realty’s brand and business have no doubt been bolstered by the leadership’s commitmentto creating places where all Raleigh residents can live, work, learn, and enjoy life.
The Brickline Greenway, St. Louis, Missouri
The Brickline Greenway is a massive $250 million project that will transform St. Louis by connectingcommunities in all directions via a 20-mile (32 km) walkable, bikeable path that meanders through as manyas 17 neighborhoods. That path, known as the Brickline, is expected to promote healthy living, enhanceaccess to transit options, and spur economic development. Leading this project is Great Rivers Greenway(GRG), a regional public agency that has been connecting communities in St. Louis via greenways for thepast 20 years and is committed to continuing to do so.
Seven signature projects—using a mix of public and private funding and spearheaded by GRG—have beenidentiUed on or near the Brickline, and many more are expected to follow. GRG is working on three projects,one of which includes one of the signature projects. The Brickline will enhance access to the city’s manyattractions and historical sites. By its design, it will create memorable experiences, connect people to eachother in new and inspiring ways, provide education and excitement, contribute to the ecology andenvironmental sustainability of the city, and more. The Brickline holds the promise of uplifting the manyneighborhoods it touches, some of which are underserved and in need of revitalization.
“The Brickline Greenway is different, not just because of its scale and ambition, but because of its process,”says Susan Trautman, chief executive oScer of GRG.
The agency looked at many precedent projects before undertaking the Brickline. Team members believethat having a strong vision, values, and intended outcomes steeped in equity and inclusion is critical tosuccess. GRG wanted to avoid unintended outcomes, such as displacement that forces businesses andresidents out due to rising property values, making places no longer affordable.
“We wanted residents and businesses to have a say in what happened to them and their neighborhoods,”says Trautman. GRG took a giant step forward by embarking on a community-led effort to guide the projectin the early planning phase. A diverse group of 125 individuals, including artists, neighborhoodrepresentatives, private funders, city staff, and institutional partners, assembled to help guide decisionsabout the way the Brickline was planned, designed, and built.
The group included a steering committee, plus four working groups—design, development, and
construction; economic development; equity; and governance—and an Artists of Color Council. Hearing thediverse voices presented a challenge but provided meaningful beneUts, including the gathering of newideas and building trust and conUdence in the project. Equally meaningful were community outreachactivities, which took place at bus stops, pop-up events, open houses, neighborhood meetings, interviews,and other events.
The Artists of Color Council was charged with identifying opportunities to integrate art along the greenwayin ways that were culturally relevant and spoke to the history of St. Louis. Art was to be integrated withdesign in aspirational ways that “unearth, heal, connect, cultivate, envision”—central themes identiUed bythe council to be reZected in various aspects of the Brickline’s design and construction. These aspectsincluded wayUnding, lighting, public art, landscape treatments, infrastructure, and open spaces, amongothers.
An aim of the Brickline design is to celebrate the diversity, culture, and histories of the uniqueneighborhoods served by the greenway. Trautman says that GRG employs art in at least two ways:
Art used in placemaking to reZect the culture of place helps people feel welcome in these publicspaces.Art can help educate and connect people to the past, and acknowledging the past can help heal acommunity.
St. Louis artist Damon Davis, part of the Stoss Landscape Urbanism design team that won a competition todo the work, designed an art feature on the Brickline in Mill Creek Valley, a former neighborhood of thehistoric African American community. The neighborhood was demolished in the 1950s during the wave of“urban renewal” that swept the country—in this case, to make way for an interstate highway, displacing20,000 St. Louis residents from their homes and businesses. The land surrounding the new interstate layfallow for years and has since been developed. Davis is designing a series of cathedral-like sculptures,symbolic of the homes and buildings that stood in Mill Creek Valley during its over 200-year history.
As the development of Brickline proceeds to the next phase, GRG continues its commitment to diversityand inclusion through more focused community engagement that taps residents and businesses inneighborhoods where development is slated to begin. This includes three of the six signature areas: CortexInnovation Community and City Foundry in Midtown St. Louis, the Mill Creek project at 21st Street, and theFairground area in north St. Louis.
Lamar Johnson Collaborative (LJC) and Marlon Blackwell Associates are leading the current design phase,with LJC managing director Chip Crawford as project lead. Crawford is ideally suited for this role: he isimmediate past chair of ULI St. Louis and chair of its Equitable Communities Initiative, committed tofostering equitable development. Crawford brings ULI resources that support achievement of GRG’s equityand inclusion goals. These resources include technical assistance panels, in which a panel of expertsprovides recommendations to address a development challenge in an intense one-day session, and theReal Estate Development Initiative (REDI), a ULI program funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundationgrant that provides education and mentoring for developers of color and women to better prepare them asa potential development partners.
The GRG team’s commitment to equitable development is vitally important for a city still struggling toimplement the calls to action outlining a path toward racial equality—as laid out in the 2015 FergusonCommission Report—more intensely now because of the persistent 2020 protests calling for racialequality. The GRG team is serious about this project’s role in creating an equitable and inclusive city whereeveryone has the opportunity for economic prosperity and a good quality of life.
Like similar projects, such as the Atlanta Beltline and New York City’s Highline, the Brickline is intended tobring millions and perhaps billions of dollars in economic return. In fact, says Steve Smith of the LawrenceGroup, developer of the City Foundry STL public marketplace on the Brickline, “I expect that over the nextdecade, we will see substantial private investment in and along the greenway.” According to analysts,return on these investments will be optimized through effective strategies that deliver equitable beneUtsfor all stakeholders.
Best Practices for Best Outcomes
Downtown South and Brickline Greenway have promising beginnings leveraging creative placemaking inequitable development, but they are in early design stages. There are existing success stories of projectsthat held the value of equity and inclusion, leading with art and community engagement.
Crosstown Concourse, Memphis
A $250 million adaptive use project in Memphis, Crosstown Concourse transformed a defunct Searsdistribution center into a mixed-use urban village. Through its inclusive approach that included a core teamof artists and designers, Crosstown Concourse was 98 percent leased when it oScially opened its doors inAugust 2017.
Now, even with the COVID-19 pandemic, the 1.2 million-square-foot (112,000 sq m) project is prospering,largely because it curated a mix of oSce, commercial, health, education, art, retail, and residential spacesthat cater to the needs of the local community.
Todd Richardson, an art historian turned lead developer for Crosstown, reported that in Memphis, with apopulation that is 70 percent African American, protests in response to the killing of George Floyd havebeen relatively peaceful. In part, he conjectured, this is because Memphis, with its long history of racialstrife, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., has been in conversation on race as acommunity for a long time.
But talk alone will not quell anger rising from racial inequality. Richardson recently became president ofCrosstown Redevelopment Cooperative and is working to create co-op housing in a largely rentalneighborhood near Crosstown Concourse, which would yield the opportunity for homeownership by localresidents. Efforts like this help build trust and can contribute to building healthy, thriving communities.
11th Street Bridge Park, Washington, D.C.
The 11th Street Bridge Park, a project of the nonproUt group Building Bridges across the River, is working totransform a defunct bridge over the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., into an urban park and to connectan underserved neighborhood on the river’s east banks to its more aXuent neighborhoods on the west.
The development team held more than 200 community meetings before selecting an architect, engagedartists in the bridge design, and through its equitable development plan, attracted $60 million in foundationfunding to implement plan actions, which exceeded the initial estimated cost of bridge construction. Totalfunds raised to date for bridge construction, maintenance, and equitable development actions exceed $114million.
The project has already attracted investment in areas east of the Anacostia River—a good thing for thearea’s businesses and residents, bringing amenities, attracting visitors who patronize local businesses, andpromoting inclusive economic growth. The equitable development plan is aimed at helping ensure that allstakeholders beneUt from the project growth anticipated in the area and are not displaced by it. Someplanned actions include providing education and Unancial resources for Urst-time homebuyers, increasingthe supply of affordable housing through the formation of a community land trust, leading constructiontraining classes, and providing low-cost loans to nearby small businesses.
Shared Attributes
Several attributes are shared by these two projects, as well as Downtown South and Brickline Greenway:
a commitment to equitable development in which all stakeholders beneUt;shared vision, values, and intended outcomes;use of art- and culture-led activities as a lever in communications, design, andactivation/programming;early community engagement; andcommitted partners, both public and private.
These attributes relate to best practices in creative placemaking, such as having a clear vision, engagingartists and the community early in the development process, combining art with design, and having strongpublic/private partnerships, among others.
Additional insights and strategies can be found in ULI’s 2020 publication Creative Placemaking: SparkingDevelopment with Arts and Culture, which includes details about Crosstown Concourse and the 11th StreetBridge Park, as well as other case studies, best practices, and guidance to implement creative placemakingsuccessfully in development projects. The report can be found on Knowledge Finder.
JUANITA HARDY is the founder and managing principal of Tiger Management Consulting Group, a SilverSpring, Maryland–based leadership and business consulting services Wrm specializing in executivecoaching across industries and creative placemaking in the real estate industry. Hardy was ULI SeniorVisiting Fellow for Creative Placemaking from 2016 to 2019 and now serves ULI in a consulting role.
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Link to the “Creative Placemaking: Sparking Development with Art and Culture” (McCormick, Hardy, and Utter – ULI, 2020) report from the 2021 Safe Streets Summit Plenary Session “Getting Creative with Our Streets” presenter Juanita Hardy, Managing Principal, Tiger Management Consultant Group: https://knowledge.uli.org/en/Reports/Research%20Reports/2020/Creative%20Placemaking