The General Services Administration (GSA) and Project for Public Spaces are currently partnering on an initiative to improve federal plazas that extend into urban communities in 24 American cities. The partnership has resulted in a free publication titled Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces: A Property Manager’s Guide.

The tools and initiatives developed [...]]]>

The General Services Administration (GSA) and Project for Public Spaces are currently partnering on an initiative to improve federal plazas that extend into urban communities in 24 American cities. The partnership has resulted in a free publication titled Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces: A Property Manager’s Guide.

The tools and initiatives developed through this partnership have recently made impacts in cities of Syracuse, NY, and Denver, CO.

In Denver, the Byron G. Rogers Courthouse plaza had become a sterile and inefficient locale during the Timothy McVeigh trial. As part of the plaza’s revitalization, the city added an “ambassador” to assist in directing visitors, as well as new benches and planted flowers. The once hectic waiting area to enter the building’s security checkpoint has been enclosed under a light-filled atrium that now includes a calming water feature.

In Syracuse, The GSA involved the surrounding community for input on upgrades to The Plaza at the James M. Hanley Federal Building, a long-time locale for weekly live music, food and entertainment on summer evenings. The Plaza’s upgrades include an oval green space, as well as benches, picnic tables and improved signage. The new design also incorporates design elements from the nearby, recently upgraded Clinton Square Corridor, creating cohesion between the two spaces.

Incorporating local communities is key to decision-making. “The broader outreach, the better,” says Project for Public Spaces Vice President Cynthia Nitikin. “It’s all sort of also geared toward having these federal buildings or municipal buildings or civic institutions start coalescing into districts and civic centers. This process is really about civic institutions taking a lead once again in helping revitalize communities.”

Related Articles:

Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces: A Property Manager’s Guide [PPS Project Experience]

Improve Your Building’s Public Spaces[Buildings Magazine]

Neil Peirce, whose weekly columns about state and regional issues are syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, reports on the growing trend of libraries as better social gathering places, offering activities beyond traditional book borrowing and reading. It’s now more common [...]]]> Photo: Main Library in Charlotte, NC

Neil Peirce, whose weekly columns about state and regional issues are syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, reports on the growing trend of libraries as better social gathering places, offering activities beyond traditional book borrowing and reading. It’s now more common for uses on the inside to spill seamlessly to the outside.
PPS worked with the Public Library of Charlotte on ways to create better public spaces around the perimeter of the building:

“If the old model of the library was the inward focused ‘reading room,’ the new one is more like a community ‘front porch.’”

Libraries can be anchors for community life.

Related Articles:

Libraries That Matter [PPS Newsletter, 4/2007]

Library Placemaking in Action [PPS Archived Newsletter]

How to Make Your Library Great [PPS Archived Newsletter]

Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool’s Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable [...]]]>

Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool’s Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable neighborhoods. The glaring omission of urban issues from the national discourse is actually no laughing matter.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

“There are three times as many urbanites in America as country folk, yet you wouldn’t know it listening to the three main presidential candidates, or perusing their Web sites. Instead, you might come away thinking the United States is a collection of Norman Rockwell small towns surrounded by picture-book farms.”

Related Stories: 

The Candidates and the City [Gotham Gazette]

Urban Issues Get Short Shrift [Politico]

Candidates Largely Ignore Urban Issues [City Mayors]

“Plunging temperatures don’t necessarily sentence us to months of house arrest. People around the world from Copenhagen to New York are figuring out how to keep things lively [...]]]> Jay Walljasper discusses the need for cities to have life on their streets – even in the most frigid days (and nights) of winter.

“Plunging temperatures don’t necessarily sentence us to months of house arrest. People around the world from Copenhagen to New York are figuring out how to keep things lively throughout the colder months. City streets bustle with festivals and outdoor attractions showing that winter is something to enjoy rather than endure.

My colleague Cynthia Nikitin, vice president of Project for Public Spaces, describes Berlin in the dead of winter: “It gets dark at 3:30. It’s snowing like crazy. But it’s no problem. People are playing bocce ball on the ice. There are tents selling hot mulled wine. You are walking down the street just watching all the other people. Life is good, and winter feels good, too.”

But you need to give people reasons to be outside, Nikitin adds — “a market, ice skating, music, decorative lighting. No one will stay outdoors to stare at an empty plaza.”

Click [...]]]> The Rockefeller Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal on its website through February 1, 2008. The 2008 Rockefeller Foundation Jane Jacobs Medals will recognize two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City.

Click here for the full  press release

Click here for the The 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal Nomination Form

“Federal buildings in many communities are the government’s most [...]]]> WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. General Services Administration, manager of 8,600 federal properties across the nation and steward of 425 historic landmarks, has published a new workbook to help guide GSA property managers on how to enhance public spaces in federal buildings.

“Federal buildings in many communities are the government’s most prominent representative, a symbol of democracy,” said David Winstead, Commissioner for GSA’s Public Buildings Service. “It’s important that these spaces are accessible to the public and that they convey a positive image of the federal government.”

GSA produced, Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces – A Property Manager’s Guide in collaboration with the Project for Public Spaces. The workbook provides GSA property managers with a step-by-step process on how to enhance public spaces such as plazas, lobbies, atria and grounds. It suggests short, medium, and long-term improvements — from actions as simple as reducing clutter and inviting civic organizations to use public spaces for activities and events, to more elaborate measures such as buildings enhancements, including the streamlining of the security process in lobbies.

“When managed effectively, these spaces support neighborhood goals and play an important role in how our client agencies view their workplaces,” commented Anthony Costa, Deputy Commissioner for Public Buildings. “It is in our collective interests that we make the most of our public spaces.”

Mixed-use development is springing up on First and Patterson Streets. People who live in the area say they are concerned about the impact it will have on their neighborhood.

Wendy Hoffman says she’s not sure what to think about the [...]]]> A mixed-use development project that is getting mixed-reviews from resident in Grand Junction, CO.

Mixed-use development is springing up on First and Patterson Streets. People who live in the area say they are concerned about the impact it will have on their neighborhood.

Wendy Hoffman says she’s not sure what to think about the 20–acre development sprouting up in the backyard of her dream home. She is worried about traffic and noise the development might bring and she’s not alone.

Grand Junction’s planning department has been fielding calls from people who have concerns about the project as well.

Developers say people just need to give it a try.

Constructors West says the concept of mixed-use is exactly why people who live next door shouldn’t be worried about traffic. They say that a place that has retail, office and residential space helps clear congestion because people don’t have to drive to work, live and play.

Phil Myrick, vice president of PPS, and Elena Madison, assistant vice president, presented a list of sites they felt could be better utilized in Fallon. The team, [...]]]> Three urban planners from PPS visited Churchhill County and Fallon, NV, in an effort to inventory and assess local gathering places and destinations around town. 

Phil Myrick, vice president of PPS, and Elena Madison, assistant vice president, presented a list of sites they felt could be better utilized in Fallon. The team, which also included farmers market expert David O’Neil, toured downtown and the county and polled local residents on needed changes or additions to bring people together and to the downtown area.

Like many suburbs in the 1970s, Sunnyvale approved and subsidized development of a mall as a way of “saving” downtown. It didn’t work [...]]]> The Silicon Valley cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale are alike in many ways. But their downtowns offer a study in contrasts because of land use decisions made 30 years ago.

Barry Benepe, the 79-year-old founder of Greenmarket, will receive the first medal for “lifetime leadership.” Omar Freilla, the 33-year-old founder of [...]]]> After funding the research that helped Jane Jacobs produce her landmark book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” nearly 50 yeas ago, the Rockefeller Foundation has inaugurated the first Jane Jacobs Medals.

Barry Benepe, the 79-year-old founder of Greenmarket, will receive the first medal for “lifetime leadership.” Omar Freilla, the 33-year-old founder of Green Worker Cooperatives in the Bronx, was named the winner of the first medal for “new ideas and activism.”

The medals will be presented in September in conjunction with the opening by the Municipal Art Society of an exhibit titled “Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York.”

Click here for the full job descriptions and information on how to apply.

“Most public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities [...]]]> Policymakers are ignoring the wishes of local people and exaggerating the importance of “metropolitan” urban design in creating successful public spaces, according to a new report, the Social Value of Public Spaces.

“Most public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities or functions, such as street markets and car boot sales,” the report said.

Kathy compares the ground floor design and management of Country Club Plaza in Kansas City and [...]]]> Kathy Madden, Senior Vice President of PPS, is participating in Planetizen’s Interchange blog series.  In her second entry, Kathy answers the question, does a building need to be old or look historic to create a sense of place?

Kathy compares the ground floor design and management of Country Club Plaza in Kansas City and Rockefeller Center in New York.