Celebrated as a regional destination and center for the community, the new Lawrenceburg Civic Park dramatically re-presents the once fragmented vehicular landscape into a unified series of settings for people, nature, and programming. What was once 1.5 acres of paved parking lots is now a public space that fills a critical need in the city’s existing public open space and provides a regional destination as an outdoor entertainment venue.
Award
Type: Award
Downtown Los Angeles Virtual Tour Platform
The DTLA Virtual Tour platform is an innovative tool developed by the Downtown Center BID to showcase the Downtown Los Angeles real estate market, its most significant properties, public spaces, and development projects, to investors, developers, brokers, and prospective commercial and residential tenants. With a dynamic combination of interactive technology, digital mapping, high-definition photography, and drone video footage the DTLA Virtual Tour offers both a bird’s-eye view of downtown.
Curbside San Diego
Curbside San Diego is an initiative spearheaded by the Downtown San Diego Partnership to promote the creative and flexible use of the public right-of-way for the expansion of outdoor business operations in downtown San Diego during and post the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative’s two primary goals are to develop creative and flexible uses of the public-right-of-way and promote long-term solutions to transforming downtown’s streets and sidewalks into vibrant people-focused places.
Moore Square Improvements
The four-acre downtown urban green space was originally conceived as one of five public green spaces for the City of Raleigh. In recent years, frequent large-scale events and daily use have taken their toll on the park’s vegetation, soils, and paving. This pressure, combined with the planned development in the surrounding neighborhood, prompted the city to renovate Moore Square to meet the changing needs of its users.
Messages for the City
Created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Times Square Arts presented Messages for the City in partnership with Poster House, PRINT Magazine, and For Freedoms. First debuted on April 17, 2020, this Times Square and citywide public art campaign featured artist-designed PSAs and messages of love, gratitude, and solidarity with New York City’s health care and essential workers.
Denver Startup Week
Denver Startup Week is a celebration of Denver’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and culture of innovation, designed to showcase downtown’s strong landscape for starting and growing a business. This year, Denver Startup Week reached all the way around the world, and our 23,000+ YouTube views and more than 18,000 Zoom attendees mean that Denver Startup Week 2020 reached further than ever before!
Project Hope, Unity and Compassion
Throughout history, downtowns and town squares have served as the foundation of society’s freedom of expression and the center of community discourse. Downtown Tulsa is certainly no different. At an incredibly tense time in our community, and in the midst of planning for unprecedented events, we found an opportunity to showcase Downtown Tulsa’s core values on temporary canvases.
O2: Outdoor Office
Rosslyn, Virginia is a community of over 25,000 employees and 15,000 residents who work or live in the buildings that make up Arlington’s iconic skyline along the Potomac River. Dozens of large, top-tier companies like Nestle, Microsoft, Deloitte and Gartner call Rosslyn home, so when the pandemic hit, the Rosslyn BID quickly began re-envisioning the future of work in Rosslyn, not only for employees, but the Rosslyn residents that were now working from home.
Dining Delivery Support Program
The Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District (D.I.D.) was searching for ways to help keep downtown restaurants in business while operating within the bounds of the safety restrictions we were experiencing. This sparked an idea to partner with a local downtown delivery company Waiter on the Way to deliver for downtown restaurants with a special discount.
Shadows at Sixth
“Shadows at Sixth: An Elevated Halloween Drive Thru” is unlike any event seen in Little Rock before. Held in a multi-level parking deck in downtown Little Rock, this drive-thru, family-friendly event was created to bring joy and fun safely to Central Arkansans in a time of uncertainty and isolation.
Street Show Artists Unite for Justice
Street Show Artists Unite for Justice was a virtual expansion of our street performance program that produced live streaming shows from our regular slate of street performers, as well as specially recorded and edited “Street Show Gems” that were taped at quintessential locations throughout downtown Minneapolis. Following George Floyd’s killing, all artist payments were matched by Mpls DID contributions to social justice organizations selected by the participating artists.
Dining on the Spot
The Dining on the Spot program, which provided expanded outdoor dining options when indoor seating was closed early March and April, was directly responsible for keeping Downtown West Palm Beach restaurants in business. In addition to creating a mechanism to continue serving customers, the DDA also provided funding for equipment rental and a branded signage program for restaurants participating in Dining on the Spot.
SODO Track
The SODO Track is transforming the portal to Downtown Seattle—a two mile transit corridor lined by industrial building backs—into an imaginative raceway of art in motion for over 50,000 people to experience daily. What was once an industrial zone is now a world-class art destination and a fitting welcome to the international city Seattle has become.
Union Square-14th Street District Vision Plan
The Union Square-14th Street District Vision Plan is a long-term vision for the district and a comprehensive plan for USP’s future capital investments and public programs. The plan is a collaborative project driven by community input and developed in coordination with design consultants led by Marvel. The project kicked off in September 2018 as a multi-year neighborhood visioning and planning initiative and launched in January 2021.
World of Winter
The World of Winter Festival is a two-month long festival that takes advantage of Michigan’s cold climate to provide interesting ways for people to experience and enjoy the season. This Festival aspires to make Grand Rapids a more active winter city, making Grand Rapids an active year-round city by hosting all activities outdoors in public spaces. All programming and activities are FREE, socially distanced for these pandemic times and geared for both families and adults.
2030 Strategic Vision Plan
Downtown Greensboro is the economic hub of North Carolina’s Triad region, and it reflects the history, diversity, energy, and talents of the entire community. Every 10 years, Downtown Greensboro, Inc. (DGI) partners with the City of Greensboro and Guilford County to set a course for the next decade of Downtown development and growth. Past plans have focused resources for strategic investments, catalytic projects and transformative programs.
Memphis South City Good Neighbor Grant
The South City Good Neighbor Grant’s purpose is to help property owners and businesses in the South City Neighborhood make exterior improvements to their properties. Improvements to the existing businesses and important places within the South City community significantly impact the pedestrian experience in a neighborhood largely reliant on public transportation and alternate mobility options.
Atlanta Downtown Social Impact Safety Team-A.S.I.S.T.
The Atlanta Downtown Social Impact Safety Team (A.S.I.S.T.) is a mobile homeless outreach initiative targeted to serve those experiencing homelessness inside of the community improvement district and funded by the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADID) in 2020 as a pandemic related response and intended to build capacity and fill gaps in the homeless service ecosystem on a short-term basis.
Downtown Sioux Falls Burger Battle
Perhaps the best way to describe Burger Battle is to share the copy from DTSF’s website: Prepare your taste buds for battle! The 8th Annual Downtown Burger Battle presented by the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Foundation kicks off January 2, 2021 and will continue through the month of January. Participating restaurants will exemplify the breadth and variety of downtown dining by showcasing the classic American burger.
Staff Supper and Heart & Soul Cookbook
The Staff Supper and Heart & Soul Cookbook project was a partnership between RDBID and RWBID. Its goal was to support food and beverage establishments and their employees who had been laid off due to the closure and were experiencing financial and emotional hardship due to COVID 19. This program ran for seven weeks during Saskatchewan’s government forced closure (April through June 2020).
Bethesda Streetery
Bethesda Urban Partnership (BUP) unveiled the “Bethesda Streetery” in June 2020 as an economic recovery response during the COVID-19 pandemic. The open-air eatery featured an outdoor seating design with tables and chairs placed on closed streets in downtown Bethesda, MD. Streetery attendees were invited to “Picnic on the Avenue” after picking up food and beverages from any local Bethesda restaurant.
Downtown Strong Small Business Impact Fund
In March of 2020 Twenty-two thousand office workers disappeared. Three-million visitors vanished. Our local retailers were shuttered. If ever there was a time to get creative, this was it. The decision was made to create a small matching grant program with an initial budget of $10,000 from our marketing account. A brand, Downtown Strong, and logo were created, and we began to promote the opportunity to our downtown businesses and non-profits.
Virtual First Friday
Downtown Ventures’ Virtual First Friday promotion boosted community support for creative-sector retailers affected by COVID-19 closures. When Downtown Colorado Springs’ monthly gallery hop was canceled, Virtual First Friday bridged the patronage gap, pushing online sales as well as social media attention.
Black Lives Matter Mural Project
The Black Lives Matter Mural Project in the summer of 2020 enlivened and supported DowntownDC at a pivotal time for the community. This project beautified public space in the Gallery Place-Chinatown neighborhood with 35 outdoor murals, shifting boarded-up storefronts (due to inactivity because of COVID-19 and compounded by unrest and uncertainty related to social justice protests) into inviting, vibrant and hopeful spaces.
Downtown Toledo Master Plan
The Downtown Toledo Master Plan was undertaken as a collaborative and inclusive process, assembled by a broad coalition of public and private sector leaders desiring to improve a struggling downtown. The public was encouraged to participate in three public meetings, submit ideas online and visit several pop-up community input locations, resulting in more than 1,000 ideas and comments. The plan created a community-driven vision for future growth that has led to the dramatic revitalization of downtown Toledo.
VMF Winter Arts
VMF Winter Arts is a free, augmented reality experience transforming public space across Vancouver’s downtown core into a free, interactive, open-air gallery. Winter Arts showcases the talented work of 26 artists and animates over 20 downtown public spaces in a completely new way. Blurring the line between the virtual and physical worlds, VMF Winter Arts highlights the convergence of art and technology to safely engage and connect art and people in public spaces over three weeks.
Brighten the Passage
Brighten the Passage is a public space and infrastructure improvement project aimed at consciously rebuilding physical and sociological connections between downtown Milwaukee’s central business district and the Historic Third Ward neighborhoods – connections that have been severed for decades by the elevated freeway. The project enhancements are practical and impactful tactics that included large-scale murals on the freeway support piers and dynamic, programmable color changing LED lighting.
DSM Forward Playbooks
The DSM Forward Playbooks are a strategic, ongoing project aimed at helping area businesses and industries prepare for the next steps related to economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry-specific and professional business function playbooks are meant to provide guidelines and recommendations to assist in determining future strategies and tactics.
Cincy Card Connection Program
The Cincy Card Connection program was created and managed by 3CDC to provide immediate financial support to Downtown Cincinnati merchants. The program established a unique gift card matching system that benefits two businesses with one gift card purchase. In order to help as many local businesses as possible, the matching gift card would be purchased from a similar, but different, business.
Downtown Day Services Center
The Downtown Day Services Center offers services to individuals experiencing homelessness. The Center, operated by DowntownDC, utilizes a housing-first model and is supported by District of Columbia Department of Human Services and services from Pathways to Housing DC and HIPS. The Center offers on-site support for individuals experiencing homelessness by providing a multitude of services within a single point of access.
19th Street Rain Gardens
The Golden Triangle BID installed 11 bioretention cells and 10 expanded tree boxes on the sidewalks of one of the neighborhood’s key streets. This project is the result of years of planning, partnerships, advocacy, & fundraising. At over $1 million in construction costs and 2 full blocks of new green infrastructure, this is the largest capital improvement managed by the BID thus far.
Sha’p Left Community Primary Health Care Hub
A containerized community clinic providing accessible, affordable primary health care to commuters in a busy, inner-city downtown area. In South Africa, only 17 in 100 people have access to quality private health care. This leaves around 45 million people relying on the public health system. Most of this group are low-income earners, living in high-density growing urban areas, who cannot afford to pay high prices for health care.
Downtown Activation and Public Art Initiative (DAPA)
The Downtown Activation and Public Art Initiative (DAPA) was created in 2012 to enliven Downtown Pittsburgh through a diverse and engaging use of public art, creative placemaking, and entrepreneurship. The initial goals of DAPA were to: Create thoughtful and innovative programming; Engage a diverse group of stakeholders; Develop event funding strategies; Include opportunities for local businesses to engage.
Data-driven/Predictive Urban Management and Public Safety for a Safer City
This project focuses on how the power of technology can be harnessed to streamline and empower urban management practices for greater accuracy and better outcomes. Working in partnership with global security service provider Securitas SA, the VRCID invested in advanced technology to extend its surveillance. It is one of a handful of improvement districts in South Africa to build and manage its own centralised control centre through which all reporting is processed into a response database.
Transit as a Solution for Downtown Parking, Office Leasing and Employee Turnover
An innovative program in downtown Columbus, Ohio has stimulated commercial leasing, reduced employee turnover, doubled the use of transit among the pool of eligible employees, and prevented the emission of more than 6.8 million pounds of CO2 per year. Launched and funded by downtown property owners, Downtown C-pass allows eligible companies to offer free, unlimited transit to their employees.
Main Street Grand Forks: The Longest Table
For the past two years, beginning in 2018, the Longest Table has welcomed local Grand Forks, North Dakota residents to sit down for a free meal in a welcoming environment with people they may not have known, to foster stronger connections, exchange stories, discuss community challenges, and spur civic innovation. Through conversations with strangers around the table, attendees are encouraged to listen attentively, share openly, consider thoughtfully, and dream big.
Open on Main
Open on Main offers no-cost retail space in the heart of the Downtown core to potential pop-up shop owners to test their retail concepts. The DMC negotiates with building owners to lease the space (below market rate) and then subleases to the shop owners at no cost in exchange for access to data on the effectiveness of their retail strategy, customer acquisition, and sales.
Project Downtown: Celebrating 10 Years of Implementation
The Master Plan for Wichita is a 15-year community vision and blueprint for development in downtown Wichita, KS. The plan was adopted in December 2010 and has served as the community’s north arrow since then. The plan was founded on market economics with industry experts providing sound economic forecast information for commercial and residential development. Since then, the market potential in each of the real estate sectors has been frequently updated for accuracy.
311 to Salesforce Integration Project
The DowntownDC BID worked with its contractor, Cube84, to integrate the BID’s instance of Salesforce-based database to the District of Columbia’s 311, non-emergency hotline. The BID works to monitor elements of public space such as sidewalks, streetlights, and street signs to help ensure they stay in a state of good repair. The BID reports defects in public space to 311 (referred to as cases) and works directly with the city agencies to ensure repairs are made in a timely manner.
LiveNFK
LiveNFK is a combination of professional development seminars and social events that showcase Norfolk’s vibrant culture. Each of the activities is designed to help make a compelling case as to why Norfolk and the region is a fantastic place to live, work and stay.