In 2015, Knight Foundation awarded a grant to the San Jose Downtown Association (SJDA) to study and implement options to transform the ground floor of the San Pedro Square parking garage into a vibrant retail incubator. Like many parking structures, the San Pedro Square garage interrupted the streetscape’s flow and rendered the east side of the street lifeless. This was during a time when the San Pedro Square Market was itself beginning to bustle. The SJDA wanted to explore two innovations:
Could small, supported retail spaces with direct street access attract new entrepreneurs and help establish them in San Jose’s downtown?
Could ground-floor garage parking spaces be converted to micro-retail stores that would be affordable for entrepreneurs and create a vibrant streetscape?
The MOMENT Project was born. It was conceived as four small retail spaces where entrepreneurs could launch a small business. It was created by removing parking spaces on the ground floor of a downtown parking garage and converting them to storefronts. Once opened, MOMENT provided an immediate boost to the vibrancy of San Pedro Square.
Fast forward to 2021. San Jose is moving through one of its greatest disruptions to downtown life since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. It’s a time when the threats to peoples’ health and livelihoods are real and public spaces have emerged as places to recharge, connect and enjoy food. In the case of San Pedro Square, one might say that outdoor dining for downtown residents has helped keep restaurants and businesses on life support while people who normally worked and attended events nearby stayed away.
During fall of 2020, Knight and Gehl studied MOMENT and six other public space projects in Philadelphia, Detroit and Akron to identify what made them successful and offer recommendations for building resilient and inclusive cities. Knight launched the study because we are an opportunistic social investor; we seek innovative and sustainable opportunities that align with our strategies. As such, Knight is constantly seeking to understand the success and failure of our investments, and honoring both.
MOMENT proved that micro-retail could work in San Jose, which is important as the city revitalizes the SoFA District and Google plans to build a nearby campus. By placing this project adjacent to San Pedro Square and the downtown Farmers’ Market, MOMENT was able to capitalize on the traffic generated by both, while becoming a draw in its own right.
However, MOMENT showed that its success was location dependent and that such a project wouldn’t necessarily work everywhere because micro-retailing needed to compliment the primary use of a commercial area. Site limitations at MOMENT and low sales volumes meant that retailers often operated as sole proprietors without staff, and they often couldn’t keep operating hours to capture foot traffic from the busiest periods at San Pedro Square Market. Early on in the project, downtown residential density was lower, so that retail sales were dependent on whether customers—whose original destination was San Pedro Square—were willing to carry their purchases with them to work, an event, or out to dinner. With increasing residential density, this concern is becoming mitigated as residents who live nearby are now becoming customers turning MOMENT into a primary destination.
During the pandemic, San Pedro Street has been partially closed to traffic. This has improved the viability of nearby restaurants and has improved MOMENT’s visibility and usability. For example, MOMENT businesses have been able to conduct outdoor workshops.
The MOMENT Project illustrated that retrofitting urban spaces for micro-retail would be cost-prohibitive without philanthropic support because converting parts of existing structures into micro-retailing sites is more expensive than building new sites.
But MOMENT also highlights the importance of micro-retailing as a vehicle to establish financial security for entrepreneurs. The collaborative spirit of the project and the commitment from the City of San Jose and SJDA to keep rents low has helped ensure MOMENT’s financial viability. As long as tenants can make short-terms leases work, MOMENT offers a much lower barrier-to-entry than would be faced at a mainstream storefront. This lets entrepreneurs experiment with the retail business model and find a mix that works before expanding.
As the community re-imagines the SoFA District, there’s a lot to be learned from the innovation at MOMENT—and from the six other public space projects across the U.S surveyed in the Knight report—all of which can be read about here. Later in April, the SJDA and Gehl will discuss the MOMENT Project in more detail during a community meeting; you can watch the events feed at sjdowntown.com for updates.
Chris Thompson is Knight Foundation’s program director for San Jose. Follow him on Twitter @Thompson_KF.
On March 24, 2021, Knight Foundation released “Adaptive Public Space: Places for People in the Pandemic and Beyond”, a Knight-commissioned report examining seven public spaces across the U.S. to identify what made them successful and to offer recommendations for developing equitable and inclusive spaces beyond the pandemic. Click here to see the report. Knight’s Lilly Weinberg and Evette Alexander share more below.
A year has passed since COVID-19 transformed our lives, paradoxically accelerating our adoption of virtual spheres while increasing our reliance on outdoor public spaces that have the power to connect and attach us to community.
We’ve witnessed record usage of these public spaces, underlining how important they are to the resilience of communities. COVID-19 provided an unexpected moment of permission — it allowed our cities to innovate and think far beyond the confines of traditional public spaces. And it has been a moment to acknowledge the racial inequities that persist in our cities. Which leaves us with the question: how can we leverage this moment in time, when billions of stimulus and other federal dollars are being released for infrastructure projects, to build more inclusive, equitable public spaces moving forward?
At Knight Foundation, we value the power of public spaces to connect and attach community members. We’ve invested $54 million towards public spaces that are accessible and welcoming to all walks of life, and we see them as central to building informed and engaged communities. That’s why we commissioned Gehl, a global leader in people-centric urban design, to conduct an impact-assessment study of seven flagship public spaces sites operating before and during the pandemic.
The report released today, “Adaptive Public Space: Places for People in the Pandemic and Beyond,” holds insights for urbanists, foundations, community advocates, public officials and private-sector leaders interested in how responsive public spaces can thrive and be a vehicle for communities to address equitable development.
The study leverages a variety of pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic data for seven outdoor public spaces — prime examples of neighborhood parks, city-wide destinations and nature oases — operating across four cities: Akron (Summit Lake Park), Detroit (Ella Fitzgerald Park, Detroit Riverfront), Philadelphia (Centennial Commons, Cherry Street Pier and The Discovery Center) and San Jose (MOMENT). Gehl conducted interviews, surveys and focus groups with residents; analyzed data collected online from visitors; and compiled existing and new observational data on each space.
The findings are illuminating, and point to a more impactful path for inclusive public space investment amid the COVID-19 recovery and beyond:
Spaces that reflected resident needs, historic character and the arts had more regular visits from residents.
Community participation and responsive engagement methods allowed space organizers to build trust and enthusiasm with residents of color.
Prioritizing and embedding resident engagement throughout the entire lifecycle led to community ripple effects like wider local capacity-building and community development beyond the project site.
Flexible community-led design, inclusive processes and capacity-building helped sites develop sustainable operating models and adapt to changing conditions — including the pandemic.
Findings remind us that the fundamentals matter: public spaces work best when they intentionally cater to the needs, history and issues relevant to residents. And these same community engagement principles enabled them to adapt and thrive amid COVID-19. For example, daily visitorship was up over 300% year over year at Philadelphia’s Cherry Street Pier, which provided spaces for local artists, a market for displaced small businesses and a garden restaurant adapted for pandemic conditions. At the Detroit Riverfront, residents self-organized regular yoga and flamenco classes, helping the space achieve last year’s visitor numbers in half the time.
As cities emerge from the pandemic, these lessons illustrate the power of public spaces as a platform for community development and addressing deeply rooted, systemic inequalities in our communities that COVID-19 only exacerbated. Open public spaces do not always translate into welcoming, safe or accessible spaces for communities of color, and the racial justice movement that played out in many public spaces in 2020 served to highlight these realities. Concerns raised by the Black community about policing is an issue some sites are addressing head on in order for residents — particularly Black men — to feel safe and welcome in these spaces long term.
To address equity, organizers must consider how they might share and shift decision-making power throughout the entire lifecycle of a public space, from initial design through governance, to include residents as partners. Detroit’s Ella Fitzgerald Park used pilots like a pop-up bike repair shop to reach residents typically under-represented at community meetings. Now, Black residents report that the park is special to them, and over half of the neighborhood visits weekly. The benefits of such engagement methods are clear: increased resident usage that helps deepen attachment to their cities.
For city leaders, policymakers, practitioners and funders like ourselves, these findings are a call to action to ensure that barriers to public spaces are reduced for all communities and that all feel a sense of belonging and welcome at every park, pier and civic common. For that to happen, planners and designers need to focus on resident needs for both the design and programming of these spaces.
COVID-19 has sparked a unique opportunity for innovation as communities rapidly repurposed public spaces during the pandemic. We can observe and learn from the ways residents have been self-organizing activities in these spaces during the pandemic — from socially distant hula hooping and flamenco, to neighborhood streets being used as civic commons — and from new ways technology can be leveraged to improve decision-making and engagement.
With the availability of more federal dollars for infrastructure, the leadership of our communities — advocates, city administrators, public and private sector leaders — have a historic opportunity to put the funding to good use by supporting equitable, accessible and engaging spaces that support more resilient cities. Now is the time to invest in community-led and empowering public spaces that can adapt to changing needs of residents during these uncertain times and beyond.
Knight-commissioned report examines seven public spaces across the U.S. to identify what made them successful; offers recommendations for developing equitable and inclusive spaces beyond the pandemic.
MIAMI— (Mar. 24, 2021) — Public spaces that emphasized community engagement thrived during COVID-19 and became a vehicle for addressing racial equity issues in the community, according to a new report from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Its key findings are timely and invaluable for local governments that are set to receive federal dollars, and funders from nonprofit and private sectors, as they seek to ensure that public spaces are equitable and inclusive for all residents.
Commissioned by Knight and conducted by Gehl, “Adaptive Public Space: Places for People in the Pandemic and Beyond,” evaluates the success of a number of public spaces currently operating and makes recommendations for improving these spaces in the future. Its insights are crucial for foundations, community advocates, public and private sector leaders and urbanists as they reimagine existing public spaces or build new ones that are engaging, welcoming and accessible to all walks of life, now and beyond the pandemic.
Leveraging a variety of pre-pandemic and mid-pandemic data, the Knight report evaluates seven public spaces operating across four cities: Philadelphia, Detroit, San Jose and Akron. They include neighborhood parks, natural green spaces and citywide destinations like waterfront retail hubs. Each has been in operation for several years, including during the pandemic, allowing Gehl to evaluate the spaces before and during COVID-19. Gehl conducted interviews, surveys and focus groups with residents; analyzed data collected online from visitors; and compiled existing and new observational data on each space.
Key findings include:
Spaces that reflected resident needs, historic character and the arts had more regular visits from residents. Residents spent more time in public spaces where community engagement was built in from the start, and those who visited more often were more attached to their communities.
Community participation and responsive engagement is vital for equitable spaces. Prototyping and pilots designed to engage communities of color allowed space organizers to build trust and enthusiasm with Black residents.
Prioritizing community engagement throughout the lifecycle of a space led to ripple effects in the wider community. Embedding resident engagement from design through governance led to wider local capacity-building and community development beyond the project site.
Flexible community-led design, inclusive processes and capacity-building helped sites develop sustainable operating models and adapt to changing conditions — including the pandemic. Community engagement enabled projects to pivot programming and provide safe venues for solo and social activity during COVID-19.
The report also offered recommendations for optimizing public space design:
Create spaces with equity in mind.To address challenges around inclusion and trust among communities of color, planners should conduct outreach and fund community participation efforts from initial design to programming to governance.
Design spaces with the input of communities that are impacted. To manage residents’ concerns about displacement, public space investments should be integrated into broader community development processes, with buy-in from all parties.
Become financially sustainable. To create sustainable operating models, planners should create innovative and diversified means of funding, incorporating both foundation dollars and public revenue streams.
“Public spaces played a key role in helping us get through the pandemic by providing access to fresh air, recreation and each other in a safe way,” said Lilly Weinberg, Knight’s senior director for community and national initiatives. “With federal dollars flowing into cities, we must now leverage the momentum to build back responsive, community-led public spaces that can be a vehicle for communities to address equitable development. This report provides valuable insights on how to do that by giving residents a voice — from design to governance — of public spaces to ultimately be a platform to improve their quality of life.”
This latest report complements the findings of another Knight study released last year that examined what connects people to their communities. One of the largest surveys of its kind, “Community Ties: Understanding what attaches people to the place where they live,’’ presented several key findings, including that residents who feel they had easy access to recreational spaces had more positive feelings regarding their communities.
To be connected with Lilly Weinberg to discuss the report or the issue of public spaces more broadly, please contact Tony Franquiz at 202-374-5393 or TFranquiz@westendstrategy.com.
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About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit kf.org.
Image (top) of Summit Lake Park, Akron by Tim Fitzwater.
Building on its longtime commitment to public spaces, Knight Foundation commissioned Gehl — a global urban planning, design and strategy firm — to conduct an impact assessment of seven public spaces in its portfolio. The findings illustrate the power of public space as a platform for community development: whether by building resident trust, spurring social activity, supporting economic and workforce development, or catalyzing neighborhood change.
This power makes public spaces a key ingredient in the recovery from COVID-19 — a crisis that has raised the stakes for overcoming deeply rooted, systemic challenges in our cities. For policymakers, funders, and practitioners, these findings are a call to action. By elevating public spaces, leaders nationwide can drive more equitable outcomes in the pandemic and beyond.
The Approach
Located in Akron, Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Jose, the seven projects in this study represent $5 million in direct Knight investments. An additional $50 million in co-funding and follow-on investments from other funders including the Reimagining the Civic Commons network went toward these sites, wider area improvements and ongoing space operations. The spaces range widely: neighborhood parks that give residents a go-to gathering spot; nature spaces that re-engage locals with the outdoors; and citywide destinations that offer art studios, beachscapes, and more.
Given the diversity of spaces, this study did not set out to measure the spaces against one another using a common set of metrics. The goal was to understand impacts related to four core themes, and to life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key Findings Include:
Spaces that reflected resident needs, historic character and the arts had more regular visits from residents.
Community participation and responsive engagement is vital for equitable spaces.
Prioritizing community engagement throughout the lifecycle of a space led to ripple effects in the wider community.
Flexible community-led design, inclusive processes, and capacity-building helped sites develop sustainable operating models and adapt to changing conditions — including the pandemic.
The report also offered recommendations for optimizing public space design:
Create spaces with equity in mind.
Design spaces with the input of communities that are impacted.
Become financially sustainable.
Image (top) of The Discovery Center in Philadelphia by Halkin Mason Photography and Digsau.
Successful cities will find new ways to design spaces everyone can access, Knight Public Spaces Fellows say
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended basic assumptions that have long anchored just about every facet of society, from home and family to work and politics. It’s also brought into question the balance between private and public space, and the very definition of just what “public” is.
Last year, Knight Foundation inaugurated the Knight Foundation Public Spaces Fellowship. The seven fellows come from diverse backgrounds and have different professional engagements with public space, but each has in common a longstanding professional commitment to the creation and improvement of public space.
As COVID-19 tears through communities across the U.S. and around the world, it has highlighted the critical role of public space as an essential parameter of public health, and it has brought into sharp relief the systemic inequity of access to public space. In their own ways, each of the seven fellows has been tackling this inequity, calling for and making public space accessible in fairer ways.
“We know public space is an essential part of mental health, public health and economic stability, so this one thing — public space — would make the disparities of equity during this pandemic less stark,” says Chelina Odbert, executive director of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI). “This is not the time for a 10- or 20-year plan,” she adds. “We need to treat this with urgency.”
To make new parks, cities spend years, sometimes decades, building consensus, allocating budgets, procuring teams, making designs, and administering construction. Now, faced with an immediate public health need and urgent demand for outdoor space that allows for safe physical distancing, that project delivery pipeline has become unacceptably slow.
“If public spaces go through the traditional track, they won’t rise to this occasion,” warns Odbert. “We need new financing strategies, new physical forms of public space, new design and decision-making processes, which will take political will, strong leadership, optimism and a belief in the possible instead of a commitment to the status quo.”
Konkuey Design Initiative recently released a toolkit for adapted public space that facilitates safe, touch-free outdoor play. Illustration by Konkuey Design Initiative.
As the commissioner of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Kathryn Ott Lovell is doing just that. Invoking the department’s history as part of the city’s Department of Welfare, she has retooled her approach to deliver immediate relief with recreation and public space. “For 57 years,” she explains, “the department has had a Playstreets program, closing off streets and delivering meals to community members.” Along with the meals comes a duffel bag filled with recreational items — hula hoops, bubbles and jump ropes. “When we were thinking about how best to address the COVID-19 crisis, we thought, ‘let’s put all our eggs in the Playstreets basket this summer.’”
Because of the neighborhood-based nature of the program, the approach limits transportation between home and park, and it keeps density low, making it an ideal shared experience in a time of physical distancing. Design consultants, including KDI, have contributed modular and adaptable play equipment. “If kids can’t come to us,” Ott Lovell says, “then it’s our moral responsibility to get to the kids.”
Oakland-based landscape architect Walter Hood shares this sense of urgency and willingness to innovate. Recognizing that arts- and performance-based groups face immense challenges as a result of the pandemic, he reached out to the City of Oakland on behalf of a local nonprofit dance organization. He proposed converting a neighborhood street into one of Oakland’s Slow Streets, transforming it into a venue for dance rehearsal and performance, and, in so doing, creating a novel type of public space.
In his personal life, as a resident of Oakland, he also took it upon himself to plant a series of trees on the sidewalk alongside his studio. This action had the effect of creating a sense of space. “People stop along the sidewalk now,” he says, referring to the sense of place and shade the trees now provide. An example of what he has defined as “hybrid landscapes,” the plantings are neither public (as a matter of contract and project delivery) nor entirely private (in the sense of being restricted to him). Instead, they provide shaded area to be shared by his community.
One of the consistent themes that has emerged about public space in the context of COVID-19 is a sense that public space need not be permanently fixed to a particular locality. Rather than something drawn in ink onto a static city map, it can move and evolve over time, like Philadelphia’s Playstreets or Oakland’s Slow Streets. This is an approach to public space-making also taken by Erin Salazar, the executive director of Local Color, an arts organization in San Jose, California. The group, which commissions artists to produce work in the public domain, is launching a new program that will provide funding for local artists to paint local storefront windows. This will not only provide artists with much-needed work, but it will also create an outdoor self-guided arts walk, drawing residents to local business and into a shared experience on the sidewalks.
“This pandemic has made everyone afraid of so many things, and, unfortunately, a fear of each other is one of those things,” says Salazar. “This project will bring the community outdoors, and people will be able to see human beings making art and appreciating art.”
More than the designation of a place as public, this sense of shared experience — of people in a place together — has come to so clearly define “public space” through this pandemic. Take New York City’s High Line, for example. Because it is technically coded as a building, and because its narrow dimensions made physical distancing effectively impossible, it was forced to temporarily close during the height of the pandemic. Robert Hammond, the High Line’s executive director, was able to stroll part of the landscape during the closure. “Without people,” he says, “it felt so melancholy. It was missing the key ingredient.” Now, as the High Line reopens for timed and ticketed visits, it has begun to reestablish the essential element — people sharing public space — that has made it such a landmark.
The High Line, 2020. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of the High Line.
This simple act of seeing other people, of sharing space with others, is a fundamental part of the human experience. By limiting that physical connectedness, COVID-19 has reinforced — loudly so — the importance of that social experience. For Anuj Gupta, the former general manager of Reading Terminal Market, a public market in Philadelphia, public space will be a much-needed and necessary tonic to months of physical distancing. “This pandemic has been a trauma to the community at large, and public space is a way to heal it,” he says. “Human beings are inherently social, and we are retreating further and further into our silos,” he cautions, citing the move toward digital communication that the pandemic has accelerated. “Public spaces are one of the few spaces that still offer the opportunity to engage in social behavior.”
For those who have ready access to it, public space, like other forms of infrastructure and public services, can seem something of a given. The pandemic, though, has brought newfound scrutiny to public space, highlighting its value in public health and laying bare inequities of access. “One thing about this moment is that we’re starting to see just how important it is to use and have public space,” says Eric Klinenberg, NYU’s Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and the author of Palaces for the People.
“I got really interested in how public spaces are morphing and transforming during this COVID crisis,” says Klinenberg. “A number of libraries, for example, have effectively unfolded, moving services outdoors, and moving librarians to other spaces, finding new ways for people to access the library even though the building itself was closed.”
As municipalities and communities set out to create and update public space to meet new demand and emerging public health parameters, Klinenberg urges a long-term view. “One of the challenges of the moment is trying to balance the short-term needs with long-term planning considerations,” he explains. “One concern I have is that cities and states will make exceedingly short-term decisions about building for distance because COVID is on our minds. By the time such projects are completed, we’ll have made our communities more isolating and atomizing,” warns Klinenberg.
As Ott Lovell considers how to deliver public space in Philadelphia, she, too, recognizes the relative time horizons. “We are dealing with a pandemic, and I’m hopeful that it’s a snapshot in time — that we are not going to have to fundamentally change how we design public space in the future.”
For her, as for all the fellows, public space is one of the last venues for diverse, spontaneous shared experience, which makes protecting it imperative to civic engagement and the democratic experience.
“Everything we interact with is about how we want to interact with it. We don’t have to go to a bar to date, we don’t have to go to a grocery store to buy food, and we are handed Facebook feeds and Netflix queues,” she says. “Public space gives us this unique opportunity to interact with people we didn’t pre-select or choose, so a time like this shows us how critical it is that public spaces are truly public.”
You can learn more about the Knight Public Spaces Fellows by watching these recent episodes of “Coast To Coast,” where Knight program director Lilly Weinberg interviewed several of the fellows:
AKRON, Ohio – Sept. 22, 2020 – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced today four investments of nearly $8 million to expand Akron’s public spacesas part of a continued commitment to make the city a more vibrant and more equitable place to live, work and play.
The four projects will revitalize and improve public spaces and public life in Akron’s downtown corridor and surrounding neighborhoods. Knight’s investments will help elevate these public spaces to premier destinations that boost the quality of life for Akronites, bring people from different backgrounds together, and deepen their shared connection to their community. The COVID-19 pandemic underscores that it has never been more important for everyone to have access to such spaces.
The projects are:
$4 millionto reinvigorate Summit Lake Park. Residents have led planning for the transformation of the historic north shore to create a destination park for area residents and Towpath Trail users. Knight’s funding will bolster Summit Lake’s role as a key gathering spot by adding a trail around the lake, a pavilion, and better access to the lake for boating, kayaking and canoeing. These improvements will give residents a conveniently located public space south of Downtown Akron that will rank among the best in the region.
$2 million to redesign and rebuild Lock 3 Park. Located in central downtown Akron and home to many of the region’s biggest festivals, Lock 3 has new plans to upgrade its performance space and design to become an everyday park welcoming residents and Akronites who work downtown. The improvements will focus on the central portion of the park, adding shade and seating, enhancing the area as a performance space and connecting to Main Street. The remodeled space will build on downtown’s strength as a great place to live that’s also a thriving job hub with opportunities to enjoy outdoor entertainment all year long.
$1.35 million to support Downtown Akron Partnership. The DAP — a coalition of property owners, business leaders and public officials that oversees the downtown district — will use Knight’s funding to advance their mission of building a vibrant downtown. The group’s efforts include helping to keep downtown clean and safe, and providing special events for the community. Part of the grant will fund world-renowned firm Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, one of the country’s most prominent urban planning, programming and park redevelopment firms, to provide consulting support during the project’s first year.
$637,500 to restore the historic John S. Knight House. This investment will transform the former home of John S. Knight, founder of Knight Foundation, into the new headquarters for the Summit County Land Bank. Located at 400 South Portage Path in West Akron, the site is one block from the Perkins Mansion and John Brown House. Though the agency serves the entire county, the work of the land bank aligns with Knight’s focus on revitalizing downtown and inner ring neighborhoods.
Since 2015, Knight has invested in great public spaces in Akron to make it an engaging place where people want to live and where people feel connected to their community and to each other. The investments have aimed to attract more residents to Akron’s downtown and surrounding neighborhoods and turn Akron into a more resilient, inclusive city.
“Access to quality public spaces is a competitive advantage to living and working in Akron,” said Kyle Kutuchief, program director for Knight’s Akron program. “The nearly $8 million in support from Knight for these seminal projects will elevate Akron’s ambition for great public spaces and ensure that more residents in Akron will be able to access these spaces and be proud of them.”
The development of the Knight-supported new projects will continue to be guided by the input of residents because all Akronites deserve world-class public spaces that are within reach and provide safe places where they can connect and find community. In the case of Summit Lake and Lock 3, both projects will be regionally significant achievements.
“Now more than ever, as we have seen with COVID-19, people continue to seek public places that build community,” Kutuchief said. “These investments expand Knight’s commitment to work with city and neighborhood leaders to make public spaces equitable and durable for Akronites now and in a post-pandemic world.”
The announcements came on the 70th anniversary of the founding of Knight Foundation in Akron by the late John S. “Jack” Knight, editor and publisher of Knight Newspapers, and his brother and business partner James L. “Jim” Knight. The Akron Beacon Journal, which Jack inherited from his father Charles Landon Knight, was the first Knight newspaper.
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy.
On September 22, 2020, Knight Foundation announced nearly $8M to support the expansion of public spaces in Akron. Click here to see the press release. Knight’s Kyle Kutuchief shares more below.
As Greater Akron navigates COVID-19, outdoor public spaces have taken on a new importance in daily life. All of us need more fresh air. Parks, trails and public spaces restore physical and mental health, make the city a more desirable place to live, build community and allow people to exercise their First Amendment rights. However, access to them is not equal, especially in Akron’score. We know we must do better to make them more inclusive.
Today, Knight Foundation is proud to announce nearly $8 million in new grants to advance key projects in Akron to make the city a better and more equitable place to live. We seek to reimagine and expand projects underway at Summit Lake, Lock 3, Downtown Akron and our founder John S. Knight’s former home in West Akron. As Knight marks 70 years as a foundation founded in Akron, these investments build on a legacy of commitment to building Akron’s future.
Since 2016, Knight has supported Reimagining the Civic Commons, a national initiative to demonstrate how strategic investments in Akron’s civic assets can advance engagement, equity, environmental sustainability and economic development. The Akron Civic Commons team worked alongside neighborhood residents and community leaders in Downtown Akron, Ohio and Erie Canal Park and Summit Lake to co-create and implement improvements to public spaces along the Towpath Trail. Much of the work to date has been about building trust with residents and establishing new ways of working between community partners.
At Summit Lake, the Summit Lake Community Council, the City of Akron, Akron Civic Commons and neighborhood residents have created an impressive vision to develop 35 acres on the lake’s north shore. Some of the planned amenities include: a trail around the lake, a pavilion, a boardwalk, a place to rent kayaks and canoes. The new park seeks to become a destination public space for nearby residents from the Summit Lake and Kenmore neighborhoods, Towpath Trail users and the community at large. The City of Akron has committed $3 million to the $10 million project. Knight will commit $4 million to completing the fundraising campaign for the new park, which is on track to break ground in 2021.
Lock 3 is our city’s central park. It has been very successful as a special events venue that attracts crowds year-round. But people who live or work downtown know that it is not a place that invites everyday use such as eating your lunch, meeting up with friends, walking your dog or just relaxing. A team led by Olin Architects, the City of Akron, the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition and GPD Group have developed a beautiful plan to redesign Lock 3 by adding trees, walking paths and places to sit. These amenities will complement a new amphitheater and stage that can accommodate a crowd of up to 4,500. Phase one of the project is expected to cost about $8 million. If $6 million can be raised in commitments by 2024, Knight will provide the remaining $2 million to move the transformative project forward.
Left: Present day Lock 3 (Photo by Tim Fitzwater); Right: Rendering of future Lock 3 (image by OLIN Architecture)
We all agree that downtown Akron must be a clean, safe and vibrant place where everyone feels invited and welcomed. Downtown Akron Partnership has been leading the way to achieve that, from their ambassadors on the streets, to their support for small businesses and planning partnership with Mayor Dan Horrigan and business leaders to execute the Vision Plan for Downtown. As Main Street reopens, the city needs an intermediary organization to coordinate stakeholders and ensure people choose the city center as a place to live, locate their businesses, shop, dine and have fun.
Knight has committed $1.35 million to support the Downtown Akron Partnership’s important mission. Part of the grant will fund Biederman Redevelopment Ventures to provide consulting support. Its founder Dan Biederman is the president of the 34th Street Partnership and Bryant Park Corporation in New York. We believe Akron will benefit from a team that advises some of the most successful public spaces in the country.
Finally, John S. Knight, a lifelong Akron resident, and his brother James L. Knight, began their newspaper company with the Akron Beacon-Journal. Between 1921 to 1929, “Jack” called a house at 400 South Portage Path home. To say it had fallen into disrepair would understate its distressed condition. The Summit County Land Bank has acquired the property and, with a $637,500 investment from Knight, will restore the home and make it their new headquarters.
The John S. Knight House will become another restored historic structure within a block of the Perkins Manson and John Brown House. The land bank’s work is critical to the revitalization of Summit County, especially Downtown Akron and its inner ring neighborhoods. This is an opportunity to restore a place of significance to the legacy of Jack Knight and to support an organization whose work advances Knight’s Akron strategy.
Through these major investments, we are focused on improving public places for all Akronites to enjoy and advancing organizations run by some of our community’s finest leaders. Knight and our community partners understand that relationships are built at the speed of trust, and we collectively put residents first because they are the heart and soul of our community. We believe our support for Akron today continues our long tradition of strengthening this great city and making it a place where everyone feels welcomed and included.
Knight Foundation believes that an equitable and engaged community is one where diverse community members are attached to the place where they live and are invested in their community’s future. And we do this work in 26 cities across the country. One of Knight’s priorities is to accelerate existing momentum to revitalize downtowns and neighborhoods, with a particular emphasis on supporting engaging public spaces.
But how do we know what’s working and what’s not? What do we need to measure to show impact? Over the last several months, we’ve watched metrics daily, like COVID-19 case counts, for signals as to how our communities are faring. But we don’t have similar signposts for understanding how our communities are recovering, and what’s happening in our downtowns and public spaces. The need for metrics to understand downtown revitalization and public spaces have become even more relevant in context of COVID-19 and the racial reckoning our country is facing.
Today, we are publishing two reports that will practically help you address these important questions around measurement and impact. While these were commissioned long before the pandemic, we believe they will help communities determine what to measure during recovery.
To get you started, a key first step is to define the goals within your community and what you hope to achieve. With this in mind, the following tips will help guide you in measuring impact:
Measure the movement of residents, employees and visitors – This has likely changed a lot in your community during COVID-19. Even if you don’t have a baseline from before the pandemic, you can still start measuring this to understand your recovery.
Be comprehensive and also evaluate equitable access – This includes measuring trends in employment, poverty, demographics, cost of doing business, the resident experience and the health of the business and housing markets. As you analyze these measures, assess equitable access to the benefits of revitalization, such as the number of minority-led and minority-run businesses and how that changes over time.
Measure the quality of civic space and how much it is used – These kinds of metrics includediversity of users, potential for interacting with the space and with others, design features that support all users’ safety and comfort, users’ immediate perceptions of the space, the presence and strength of cultural assets in or near the space, the diversity of the surrounding business mix and how often the space is used.
Measure indicators of people’s attachment to the place– People must want to be in and draw benefit from being in an area for revitalization to occur. You can understand how attached people are to a place by the things that tie them to a place (jobs, family); how they behave (purchasing a home, civic engagement); and how they feel about the place. For the 26 Knight communities, we also recently released the “Community Ties: Understanding what attaches people to the place where they live”study on attachment in our communities.
In these uncertain times, questions around the future of our downtowns and the equity of our institutions and spaces are more important than ever. As budgets are being cut, the report and toolkit helps give practitioners and city planners a clear idea of what to measure to know what works and what doesn’t. We hope this is useful and provides you with the right tools to make decisions for a more equitable and engaged community.
Lilly Weinberg is program director for community foundations and Ashley Zohn is director for learning and impact at Knight Foundation.
Well before COVID-19 shut down community life as we know it, Knight Foundation commissioned Urban Institute to explore a key question: what attaches people to the places where they live? To understand this question, Urban Institute, in partnership with the firm SSRS, surveyed over 11,000 Americans: 1,206 U.S. adults living in urbanized areas and 10,261 living in 26 metro areas throughout the United States where Knight Foundation works.
Understanding what ties residents to their community may be even more important in a post-pandemic America. Many of us have become more acutely aware of the amenities in our communities that were rendered inaccessible during closures. At the same time, new questions are being raised about what the future of community will look like. Critical to addressing all of these issues is a clear understanding of what matters to people about their community—and what about that community connects them to the place and to each other. We wanted to learn more about what attaches people to the places they live, measured both sentiment (how they feel about the place) and behavior (ways they might exhibit their sense of attachment). These insights could shed light on why people choose to stay in a place or to leave, and could inform efforts by cities to boost attachment in their local communities.
Lilly Weinberg is director for community foundations at Knight Foundation. Below, she highlights a recent report detailing the impact of the Knight-supported On the Table initiative, which brings together community residents over mealtime conversations to discuss pressing community issues.
In a time of growing polarization, when trust in institutions of all kinds has hit all-time lows and social media conversations often descend into hateful rhetoric, it may seem difficult to find pathways for consensus and common ground. At the same time, the strength of our democracy and our local communities relies on connected action — the ability of residents to hear each other, make informed choices and shape decision-making.
Through this lens, in 2017 Knight Foundation expanded an initiative of the Chicago Community Trust called On the Table. Founded on the basic premise that ‘we all need to eat,’ On the Table brings people from different backgrounds and income levels together to share a meal and discuss pressing community issues. In a few short years, with the help of community foundations across the country, it has united tens of thousands of city residents on a single day to talk about issues from affordable housing and climate change to racial equity and transportation.
At Knight Foundation, we’ve witnessed the impact of On the Table first-hand. We’ve seen how these conversations have informed decisionmakers and led to greater community attachment and connection. In 2017, we convened more than 40,000 people in 10 cities across the country; conversations took place in large and mid-size metropolitan communities and rural areas from the South to the Midwest to the Pacific Coast.
This year, we’ve seen the momentum grow, with participant numbers across 10 cities up to 50,000, and more to tally. Community foundation partners are fueling this energy, offering micro-grants to implement ideas discovered through On the Table in cities such as Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., and helping participants raise awareness for issues important to them. In Lexington and Macon the conversations and data informed their five-year strategic plans. Democracy at its best!
What’s most extraordinary however is that amidst growing community narratives of division and dissent — people still want to convene. On the Table reveals, in fact, that city residents are hungry for connection. They want to help make their neighborhoods better and take action in their shared community. And despite the growing role that technology is playing in our lives, there’s a deep desire for in-person, solution-building between people who would otherwise never meet.
This grasp of the ‘power of local’ is important. At the end of the day, your vote for president is secondary if your local school system is broken or your lake polluted. Local communities are where people have the ability to affect change and see its immediate results. And On the Table is giving them a forum to do just that.
In an effort to measure the initiative’s impact, we conducted real time surveys with participants with the help of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement. Here are four important takeaways from the findings:
Most participants gained new understanding of how to address issues facing their community. The majority of people (58%) said they gained a somewhat-to-much better understanding of how to address issues in their community.
On the Table spurred new connections with neighbors and encourage civic action. Many respondents reported making new connections with other respondents, including speaking with someone new (62%). Nearly 9 in 10 respondents (86%) said they are somewhat-to-very likely to take action after On the Table, with 40% saying they are very likely.
Knowledge is power. Learning about new ways to address community issues encouraged civic action, among both those who are very involved in their community (87 percent) and those who aren’t (72 percent).
Local context matters. Equity and social inclusion, economic issues and poverty, and education and youth development were among the top issues discussed during the On the Table conversations. But topics varied depending on the city. Housing and homelessness, for example, played a large part in discussions in Silicon Valley and Long Beach.
The results are a powerful reminder that despite daily reports of political conflict and ideological collides, people are hopeful—they want to find a way forward. By combining the common need to eat with a platform for positive local change, On the Table provides an outlet for that movement.
To learn more about the On the Table Initiative and the impact of the initiative, click here.
Akron is growing. That is a phrase we haven’t been able to say since the 1960’s when population peaked at 292,000. Since then, the city has lost roughly one-third of its population. Yet Akron grew by 135 people in 2015, according to the most recent Census estimate. It’s not a lot – you could line them up, count them, pose for a group picture. But we believe it’s a key sign of what will come, a turning of the tide for a city that has struggled for decades to reverse the forces of decline.
Knight Foundation is one of many organizations working to push Akron forward. To encourage the city’s progress towards stabilization and growth, Knight invests in public spaces, with a focus on building vibrancy in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. We believe that great public spaces help connect people to place, advance civic participation and provide quality of life incentives that draw in newcomers and encourage residents to stay.
In In 2015, Akron was selected as one of five cities to participate in Reimagining Civic Commons, a national initiative that leverages parks, trails, libraries and other public spaces to connect people across communities. Civic Commons, Downtown Akron Partnership and the City of Akron have engaged the community in a downtown planning process that identified a series of projects to improve neighborhood life. The Akron Civic Theatre’s expansion and adjacent Bowery Redevelopment Project, bolstered by a $4 million investment from Knight, are keystone projects for Main Street revitalization. They also support efforts by the city and private developers to encourage more people to live downtown.
Downtown Akron Partnership also worked with Gehl Studio, an urban research and design consultancy, to complete a Public Space Public Life survey. The study examined how people use sidewalks, parks and other public spaces in downtown, revealing that people are hiding in office buildings rather than exploring the places around them. The next phase of the effort involves a series of projects that invite everyone in downtown to come out and enjoy the city on a daily basis.
Photo courtesy of Gehl Studio
Here’s what they will find: A section of the fence in front of Lock 3 Park has been removed to make way for “Lock Next” – a pop-up patio for people to meet up and hang out. Northside Green, an outdoor living room in the Northside District, now houses a large mural, furniture and restructured parking lots. Once desolate Cascade Plaza hosts numerous activities during the week including picnics, yoga and food trucks.
Akron’s Kenmore, Middlebury and North Hill neighborhoods are doing similar work, designing with residents and the authentic character of the place in mind. With recording studios, guitar shops and nationally renowned Earthquaker Devices, which makes guitar-effect devices like guitar pedals by hand, Kenmore has a burgeoning music scene. To build on the momentum, the Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance hosted “Live Music Now” featuring local bands in a formerly vacant building. The events connected neighbors and helped people imagine a renewed business district.
The Well Community Development Corporation converted a formerly vacant church in Middlebury, the into its headquarters and the ground floor into a coffee shop. Credit: Tim Fitzwater
In addition, think tank City Observatory just named North Hill as one of the most racially and economically-diverse neighborhoods in the nation. To build on that strength, Knight helped support the Exchange House, which hosts AirBnB rooms, providing revenue to help sustain the staff, as well as a community space and adjacent park. Recent events include a ceremony to honor the Police Department’s first Bhutanese Police Officer, a Gum Dip Theatre performance and the North Akron Community Development Corporation’s farmer’s market.
Photo courtesy of The Better Block.
As we study successful cities across the country, a refrain that rings true is that talented people have choices, and the quality of a place is very important them. Akron can be a destination for more people. Knight will continue to invest in initiatives that attract them, by enhancing public spaces, revitalizing neighborhoods and inviting citizens to participate in public life.
Kyle Kutuchief is Akron program director for Knight Foundation.
