Client: Hennepin County Taxpayer Services
Community Involvement and Decision Making: Designed an unusually inclusive community-focused process to prepare site redevelopment recommendations for a blighted triangle-shaped property abutting a rail line in Northeast Minneapolis that was under the authority of Hennepin County Taxpayer Services.
Stakeholders participating in the project included members from community groups that had been maintaining and planting trees on the property, arts groups that had created an informal sculpture garden and also those related to the arts overlay zoning district, as well as from multiple city and county agencies with regulatory and decision-making authority.
A highly collaborative and inclusive process helped the group reach consensus on a neighborhood- and culturally-sensitive recommendation.
The original site was a community eyesore, and was vastly improved by volunteer community efforts — all of which were informal 
A working track plus an abandoned spur at the edge of the site increased the challenges 
Neighbors and nonprofit partners contributed plantings and art 
Several years of volunteer and nonprofit community investment increased the challenge of making decisions about this brownfield site’s future