Small Business, Streetscapes and Commercial Corridors
How cities are investing in local civic infrastructure to spur economic activity
A recent report from The Brookings Institution on smaller communities finds that investments in “quality of life and place” are more effective than many traditional economic development tools.
The report demonstrates that investment in civic infrastructure (like parks, trails, libraries and cultural centers) remains an under-recognized economic development strategy. As the report’s authors state: “Our research on smaller communities has found that community amenities such as recreation opportunities, cultural activities, and excellent services (e.g., good schools, transportation options) are likely bigger contributors to healthy local economies than traditional ‘business-friendly’ measures.”
Today, we profile five examples of how cities are focusing on the connection between transforming public spaces and supporting a more equitable and healthy local economy.
Complete Streets as Civic Commons
If you take a ride down Detroit’s McNichols Street — and streets adjacent to McNichols — you’ll see new streetscape infrastructure featuring multi-modal transit options making the streets more inclusive to a diverse set of users. These corridor improvements include new and expanded sidewalks, protected bike lanes, pedestrian-scale lighting, street crossings, landscaping, bus islands, and Mogo bike stations.
These new corridor enhancements promote the growth of small businesses and have incentivized new commercial development in the Fitzgerald neighborhood. Perhaps most importantly, they encourage both residents and visitors to linger in the neighborhood, with more options for dining, shopping and leisure in Northwest Detroit. The Avenue of Fashion (about a mile away from the McNichols commercial district on Livernois) has historically served as an anchoring corridor on the city’s Northwest side. The new McNichols infrastructure stretches this fashion and food district southwards, attracting everyone from college students from the local university to families with young children to the area.
Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood is experiencing both amplified and equitable economic growth through the opening of new ventures like Detroit Pizza Bar, a business which boasts a staff of local residents who serve locals and visitors alike. This investment into the streetscape and the work of Detroit’s Civic Commons has sparked subsequent investments that create jobs and support Black entrepreneurs, including Detroit’s first Black-owned brewery, 734 Brewing, and 7434 McNichols, a pop-up retail space and small business incubator created by a partnership between Invest Detroit and the Live6 Alliance. 7434 McNichols offers opportunities for local entrepreneurs to cowork, have a physical marketplace, and expand their businesses right on the developing McNichols corridor.
With greater access to public space through a variety of transportation modes, streetscape investments in Fitzgerald are stabilizing a small business corridor, solidifying Livernois Avenue and McNichols Street as destination districts, supporting an increase in property values, and attracting further investment. This work also supports long-time Fitzgerald homeowners, who have an opportunity to build home equity and stabilize and grow their property values.
Creating A Transformational Corridor
Town Branch Commons is a two-mile ribbon of trails and greenspace currently under construction in Lexington, Kentucky that follows the historic path of Town Branch, a creek that was Lexington’s first water source, which today runs underground. It will connect Lexington neighborhoods and the city’s downtown through the central business district. When complete, it will include continuous bike and walking paths, connections and improvements to a series of existing parks and one entirely new signature park, a project that weaves together multi-modal transportation, open space and environmental improvement.
Lexington is intentionally planning equitable redevelopment using the Town Branch Commons as a catalyst, resulting in new housing (including affordable housing and affordable home ownership), new retail opportunities and the creation of vibrant new districts in — and adjacent to — the city’s downtown.
The City of Lexington and its partners, including the Lexington Downtown Partnership/Downtown Development Authority, spurred this through the creation of a development summary that highlights areas of potential development and redevelopment within walking distance to the Town Branch Commons spine. Since the public release of the development summary, multiple projects have been announced, representing new infill and reuse within underutilized blocks, surface parking lots and older buildings.
For instance, over 25 acres of surface parking in downtown’s Rupp District has been repurposed by the investment of over $350 million in the transformation of Central Bank Center, the city’s convention center; Rupp Arena, home of University of Kentucky Wildcats; Town Branch Commons and Town Branch Park. Additional investment has followed, including the LexLive entertainment complex which opened in 2021, and a recently announced plan to convert a surface parking lot on High Street into a mixed use development.
One of the largest impacts of Town Branch Commons is to extend the spine of the city’s downtown to the districts to the east and west. To the west, the Distillery District has emerged as a very active entertainment/mixed use district in an area previously characterized by aging industrial properties and unoccupied buildings. To the east, one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods, East End, has seen an influx of new investment, including affordable housing. Last year, Community Ventures (CVC), a Lexington non-profit focused on economic opportunity, opened The MET, a 75,000 square foot mixed-use development located at the junction of the Town Branch and Legacy Trails, and adjacent to Charles Young Park and Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden. Just a block away, the Artist’s Village is developing live/work space for artists and creative entrepreneurs who aspire to home ownership. Together, The MET and Artist’s Village are bringing new resources to the historic East End community, including a new restaurant, a coffee shop, a gallery featuring Kentucky-based artists, a festival village for local artists, a pedestrian green, a community health center in partnership with HealthFirst Bluegrass, as well as affordable and market rate housing.
Cultivating the Next Generation of Artists and Makers
Chicago’s Rebuild Foundation recently broke ground on a 40,000 square-foot arts and entrepreneurship incubator at a former elementary school on Chicago’s South Side, part of a commitment by the foundation to supporting emerging businesses with resources and support. St. Laurence Elementary School was shuttered in 2002 and slated for demolition, but was rescued in 2015 by artist Theaster Gates and Rebuild Foundation to serve as the site of the incubator. At an exciting celebration of community resilience and artistic potential, Rebuild Foundation was joined by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, First Lady of Chicago Amy Eshleman, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner Erin Harkey, Alderwoman Michelle Harris and cultural leaders across the country at a May kickoff of the project’s eighteen-month transformation of the space.
“As an emerging artist navigating the creative industries and my own curiosity about process and making, access to resources, space and programs in my own neighborhood would have been vital to developing and refining my practice,” said Gates, who is an artist and the founder of Rebuild Foundation. “This project strengthens our ability to support artists and artisans with the tools, training and resources that will enable them to experiment and create innovative projects right in their own community. St. Laurence is as much about preserving Black space as it is about giving new life to creative possibilities on the South Side.”
The forthcoming incubator, Rebuild Foundation’s largest project to date, will offer artist studios, makerspace, classrooms for creative entrepreneurship courses, an archive laboratory and more, harnessing over $80 million that has been invested in the community through Rebuild’s artist-driven neighborhood development initiatives. Slated to open in Winter 2023, St. Laurence will serve as an engine of economic empowerment for creatives on the South Side. It will drive cultural production and community development by providing access to the tools, resources, skills and financial literacy critical to community-led transformation.
A Lively Boulevard Creates Economic Vibrancy
Akron’s Kenmore neighborhood is located immediately west of the Summit Lake neighborhood, one of the three Akron Civic Commons sites along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. Easily reached by walking or biking on the trail, it’s a place where residents and entrepreneurs are empowered to contribute to the economic development of their own neighborhood. The opportunities provided by the work of Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance have attracted more customers and increased vibrancy and economic activity on Kenmore Boulevard, an artsy and eclectic destination for shopping, recreation, entertainment and music.
Akron’s once-distressed Kenmore Boulevard today plays host to an array of community-wide events, festivals and concerts. Residents and visitors alike enjoy the various, diverse local businesses, live music, swing dancing and street festivals — the result of collaborative partnerships with residents, non profits, city government, advocates and local entrepreneurs.
Tina Boyes is the head of the Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance Executive Director, an organization founded in 2016 to foster cultural, artistic, recreational and business revitalization to the district.
“As a fifth generation resident of this neighborhood, I watched what I once knew as Kenmore begin to fade — sometimes slowly, other times quickly — I wanted to bring what experience and connections I’d gained in the nonprofit funding world back into the neighborhood where I grew up,” says Boyes.
Music is core to the boulevard’s revitalization. In three blocks along Kenmore Boulevard, there are six recording studios, two guitar shops and a regional live music venue, surrounded by a community full of working musicians with studios and practice spaces in their basements.
Kenmore First Fridays, a tradition that began five years ago, features many local musicians playing live music, as well as offering pop-up retail opportunities for local makers, craftspeople and entrepreneurs.
The Kenmore Neighborhood Alliance and the City of Akron are also working together to create a safer, cleaner and more appealing boulevard to attract economic activity. This translates to ensuring the boulevard has nighttime lighting, signage, extended sidewalks, bike lanes and pedestrian access.
Urban Agriculture that Promotes Entrepreneurship
Let’s Grow Akron started from the planting of a community garden in Akron’s Summit Lake neighborhood in 1988 and has since grown into an organization providing garden and food education, a farmers’ market, and recently, the Community Farm Market & Kitchen. Located just off the prototyped Summit Lake Loop Trail, the Community Farm Market & Kitchen is supported by Akron Civic Commons. While the current loop trail is a pilot project consisting of mown grass, plans are in development by the City of Akron, Summit Metro Parks, and Ohio & Erie Canalway Coalition to make it a permanent fixture.
Currently, no trail encircles the entirety of Summit Lake. The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail runs along the east side of Summit Lake and the loop trail will fill a missing and vital connection between the east and west sides of the lake.
The Community Farm Market & Kitchen has a unique opportunity to leverage its location adjacent to the proposed trail, serving users of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail once the loop trail becomes fully realized. In addition, it is proximate to the Summit Lake North Shore investments that will include a pavilion for family gatherings, shaded seating and swing, a canoe and kayak share, boat launch ramp and a concession stand to enjoy an ice cream cone, sandwich, or cup of coffee, and will likely also drive increased foot traffic. The hope is that the market can be a new node along the trail and a place to buy fresh, healthy and seasonal food.
When Lisa Nunn, director of Let’s Grow Akron became a part of the organization 10 years ago, “we were a community garden organization.” But now, the organization is so much more.
As interest in community gardens grew and the neighborhood identified a need to create more sustainable food sources, partnerships with other organizations, such as Summit Metro Parks and the Summit Lake Community Center, helped the organization launch the Summit Lake Farmers Market, which has steadily grown attendance, revenue, and vendors since 2015. Taking place from June to September at Summit Lake Park, it is by design a smaller farmer’s market, to provide Summit Lake residents with opportunities for entrepreneurship in the food space. The goal is creating space for small-scale growers and producers, rather than larger farm operations.
To supplement the desire for access to healthy food products outside of when the Farmer’s Market is in operation, Let’s Grow Akron created the community canning program and the Community Farm Market & Kitchen. Community canning classes provide demonstration-style learning and support residents who weren’t comfortable canning on their own or did not have access to canning equipment. The newly opened Community Farm Market & Kitchen means products created through community canning can now be sold year-round. The Farm Market & Kitchen both creates jobs and provides revenue for Let’s Grow Akron, and helps provide funding to tackle food deserts and provide more healthy and sustainable food sources.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
