Strengthening Local Opportunities

Detroit’s civic commons 2022 in pictures

Unver the pavilion at Ella Fitzgerald Park, Learning Journey participants heard from Alexa Bush and Fitzgerald residents about the neighborhood transformation over the past six years. Image credit: Nadir Ali.

Kick off your new year with inspiration from a dozen cities transforming civic assets to deliver more engaged, equitable and economically and environmentally resilient communities. Today, the sixth in our series of photo essays reflecting on the past year of progress features the civic commons work in Detroit.

University of Detroit Mercy students are frequent collaborators in maintaining community spaces in the Fitzgerald neighborhood. Image courtesy of the University of Detroit Mercy Marketing & Communications Department.

Local stewardship

University of Detroit Mercy students worked with Fitzgerald resident Gaston Nash to make site improvements at MoFlo Garden, a neighborhood hub and community gathering space. These frequent collaborative efforts in the Fitzgerald neighborhood supported by University of Detroit Mercy students and neighborhood residents, has led to new and maintained improvements at Ella Fitzgerald Park, the Greenway and commercial and residential alleys.

Community members at Neighborhood HomeBased for the Hawkins’ Apparel exhibit. Image credit: Bre’Anna Johnston.

Celebrating Black legacies

Community members gathered at Neighborhood HomeBase to celebrate the Hawkins’ Apparel exhibit presented by Live6 Alliance in partnership with the Detroit Collaborative Design Center. The exhibit was part of a larger neighborhood storytelling initiative funded through the National Endowment for the Arts and incorporated in the Detroit Month of Design, curated annually by Design Core Detroit. Hawkin’s Apparel, the first black-owned women’s apparel shop in the state of Michigan, was originally housed at the Neighborhood HomeBase location on 7426 West McNichols and remains important to the Live6 Alliance and the community as they remember the history and legacy of the stakeholders that came before.

Civic Commons Learning Network members explored the Fitzgerald neighborhood, starting at HomeBase, and saw the work of housing programs such as Rehabbed and Ready and Bridging Neighborhoods. Image credit: Nadir Ali.

Welcoming Civic Commons

Members of the Civic Commons Learning Network visited the Fitzgerald neighborhood during the Learning Journey held in Detroit from July 7–9, 2022. Participants visited the neighborhood to learn more about the team’s public space activation strategies, passive native landscapes, housing revitalization plans, commercial corridor development and the collaborative staffing models that are driving the shared vision for this work. During this immersive, hands-on study trip, participants visited sites that were supported and developed through the Reimagining the Civic Commons initiative, including Ella Fitzgerald Park and Greenway and Neighborhood HomeBase, a community storefront owned and operated by the Live6 Alliance.

Marygrove Conservancy. Image credit: Gregory DeMyers.

Supporting small businesses

Attendees participated in the Run Your Business Like a Boss Conference, a collaborative small business expo and resource day hosted by Marygrove Conservancy on November 11, 2022. The Live6 Alliance supported the event and shared with attending business owners information about the public investments going into the McNichols commercial corridor and the opportunities that they will bring to emerging businesses and entrepreneurs.

Local Detroit businesses served up food and self care during HomeBase for the Holidays. Image credit: Bre’Ana Johnston.

Piloting entrepreneurship opportunities

Description: Annually, Live6 Alliance hosts a seasonal small business marketplace, HomeBase for the Holidays. Local Detroit businesses are recruited and curated to create a fun and affordable holiday shopping experience on the McNichols commercial corridor. The market is designed to provide small businesses with a platform to further promote their brand and merchandise and grow their operations. HomeBase for the Holidays also served as a pilot program for the forthcoming permanent Live6 Marketplace at 7434 West McNichols and is expected to launch in Summer 2023. This permanent entrepreneurial hub will provide a collaborative brick and mortar retail space that can be rented for a fixed period of time at a subsidized cost.

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.