what do you want Wick Park to become?

This Saturday, March 15th at 11:00am, there will be a meeting.

It's purpose: for a community to come together and build a vision for what the Wick Park of the future will be.

(photo courtesy of the Wick Park wikipedia entry)

Founded in 1889, the Park is just north of the YSU campus, and the neighborhood surrounding it is home to many university students and faculty members.

Similar to several pockets of the northside, Wick Park now needs a little love and attention. Like anything worth keeping, a bit of planning and reinvestment now will go a long way towards sustaining a bright future.

Please join the Defend Youngstown movement and Youngstown CityScape with the professional services of The Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio for the initial meeting for community-wide input.

The future timeline and structure of the project is archived here.

WHO: All interested individuals, businesses, institutions, neighborhood organizations, non profits
WHAT: Share sense of history of Wick Park, information about the current conditions, restrictions on its use; discuss community goals and intended outcome of the park planning process. Chance to sign up for projects in the park.
WHEN: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 11:00 am
WHERE: Park Vista (Community Room) 1216 Fifth Ave.

You can RSVP to youngstowncityscape (at) sbcglobal (dot) net or call 330-742-4040

this will be the first step in a multi-step process.


so to prepare for the meeting, I have been thinking about all the parks I have visited over my life and what made them special.

things like:

- often populated by the public during both night and day
- historic or artistic signage
- good views of surrounding architecture in neighborhood
- fenced-in dog park to let pooches run wild and meet other dog owners
- farmers' markets
- a lake with a trail around it
- pruned trees and landscaped flowerbeds
- fountains
- an outdoor stage for community events
- stone entryways


so Youngstown, what do you want Wick Park to become?

what aspects are important to you?

u mich city planning ideas now online

Over the summer, city planning graduate students from the University of Michigan came to Youngstown to participate in a design studio. For parts of three days, they met various stakeholders including university and business representatives, city government, and youngstown bloggers, among others.

Then they came back.

Four teams of students presented their ideas and concepts at the downtown convocation center, and recently these presentations have been put online.


You can access the content of the four presentations here. A warning though, the file is a 25 MB pdf because of all the pictures contained within.


Here is just a sample of their ideas, many of them easy to implement and some of them are complex in scale. I particularly liked the presentation that brought the water element into various parts of the downtown.





Please note: this project was a design studio for a university class. It is NOT final design ideas set in stone. Do not get angry if you do not like certain components, because they are at a very preliminary stage of planning and imagining.

However, if you like certain concepts of these plans, be loud about it. Share them with your neighbors and tell others what you think. Perhaps by being loud with your opinions, some of these ideas can become a reality.

And thanks to the students for coming to Youngstown and sharing your great ideas.

Public Planning Meeting will be the first of many

Tomorrow (Wednesday) kicks off an important step in the Youngstown 2010 Planning Process - The very first public planning meeting will be held at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center at Fellows Riverside Garden (7pm) to discuss ideas about what is currently being called the Garden District.


This neighborhood, the first of nearly 130 within Youngstown City limits to be planned, is bordered on 2 sides by Mill Creek Metroparks. It is also hugged by Calvary Cemetery to the west and Mahoning Avenue on the north.


Public meetings like these are priceless to the City Planning Department as it gives them an opportunity to hear directly from the residents of that area. Without that valuable input, it can be difficult to determine exactly what the best plan for an area is.

If you live in the area, if you don't live in the area, if you want to move to the area, or if you have ever passed through the area to get to Fellows, please try to contribute to this discussion. You can have a say in what happens here.

The format will be somewhat informal, with the Planning Department presenting several preliminary thoughts, ideas, and observations about the neighborhood. These rough ideas are meant to initiate discussions by the public about what may or may not work in this particular neighborhood. From there, the Planning Department will have some material to work with to generate new and improved plans, which will again be presented in a public forum at a later date.

Be there and be vocal.

- - -

In addition (and because it wouldn't be a Youngstown Planning Meeting if they didn't use Youngstown-based technology) participants will be using Turning Technologies' audience response system.

During the presentation, the public will have the ability to voice 'Yay' or 'Nay' the ideas with the touch of a button.

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'Garden District' Public Planning Meeting

June 27, 2007 7pm

D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center

Fellows Riverside Garden

The Gateway District

Story 1: Several weeks ago, the Market Street/Midlothian intersection was brought up as a potential site for improvement during a community design session in Boardman township. The following graphic identifies the amount of open space that occurs at this vital gateway between both the city and the township. The intersection proper is currently home to two vacant lots, a partially vacant bank that is 'For Lease' and Sami's Quick Stop. The northwest corner will soon be anchored by a new library to serve the area.



Story 2: Market Street is an important corrider that runs through both the City and the Township and both have identified this stretch as vital to their communities' future success.

Story 3: Mayor Williams has expressed interest in using Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDD) "as a way to promote regional, economic cooperation." He has recently appeared on the David Betras Show more than once discussing and debating this economic strategy and its ability to be used effectively in our city. JEDD's are a North East Ohio invention (by current mayor of Akron, Don Plusquellic) that allow a city to receive a portion of the taxes from the development on township property, without the threat of annexation. The result is a mutually agreeable development.



Conclusion: Now, like some Guy Ritchie movie, wouldn't it be great if all three of these story lines came crashing together to create one harmonious and enlightening ending? I see this intersection as having great potential for some sort of development. Do you agree? Maybe there is a different way to create a welcoming gateway into the city that is anchored by a brand new library.

Thoughts?

master plan for the downtown

"everything that you do should be predicated on the fundamental premise that Youngstown is a city with a future."

So said Allan Mallach of the National Housing Institute when he spoke at the the first installment of the Youngstown 2010 - Wick Neighbors Neighborhood Reinvestment Series.

Mr. Mallach presented a number of interesting ideas about how to bring investment to city neighborhoods. One of our neighborhoods is the downtown.

Consider the statement in yesterday's Vindicator and the future of the downtown neighborhood:

"The city is seeking a CIC resolution in support of
allowing the Youngstown Municipal Court to have first option on any development at the former Masters building complex on West Federal Street."

This story made me think of the benefits and drawbacks of placing yet another government structure on Youngstown's main street. I have made no secret in the past of my opinion that the Children Services Building on Federal Street is a poorly designed structure because of its brick wall with no entry or function that runs along the entire front of that building.

The front of the building effectively makes that segment of Federal Street a dead zone, closed to future commerce and accessibility for the next thirty years.

And while the New Court of Appeals on the the other side of the street in a nice building and it replaces some abandoned structures, it's a government building as well. Government buildings, like the possible future Youngstown Municipal Court at the Masters site, will be visited regardless of location in the downtown because people need their services.

So is now the time that we begin to save the space along Youngstown's main street for private sector investment, mixed-use housing with retail in the ground floor, or other structures that are more friendly to foot traffic?

Or perhaps a compromise of function can be utilized: we can have retail and restaurant space facing Federal Street, and the court complex be connected to this, facing another street front. There seems to be a lot of space in that recently demolished city block.

Maybe it is time that we develop a master plan for the downtown.

By drawing together business owners, downtown workers, city residents, urban planners, landscape architects, and other stakeholders to create a plan of action, similar to the Youngstown 2010 process, that can be used to guide the future land use downtown.

my question for each of you is:

What do you want Downtown Youngstown to look like in ten years?

Can a downtown master plan help us to reach that goal?