Tallahassee’s First Placemaking Week Complete
KCCI is excited to share the successful completion of Tallahassee’s first Placemaking Week. The initiative occurred from Sept. 21 to Oct. 1, and was dedicated to organizing free events that bridged the divide between people and encouraged conversation in the community. People were invited to come together and create solutions and areas where they could enact reachable ideas.
KCCI seeks to sustain positive change in Tallahassee through sense of place projects and active local involvement. Themes shaping this year’s dynamic Placemaking Week include community planning, beautification, community dialogue and small-scale grassroots movements.
Activities were held in more than 10 different locations around town, including the Betton area, Southside, College Town, Midtown, Downtown, Cascades Park and Goodwood. Attendees helped to energize each location by participating in Placemaking Week efforts and activities.
Placemaking Week featured participatory artistic projects like Rise Up in Color where the community creatively painted two staircase walls in the Betton area as well as the Midtown Paint-athon where attendees created a new mural and brightened the silver mailboxes that are prominent in a busy parking lot. Students from Holy Comforter Episcopal School also built a little library for the community near Sabal Palm Elementary School. Participatory and artist-led beautification efforts add a creative and collaborative aspect to an area’s sense of place.
Networking was also the central component of Placemaking Week events including the Downtown Expedition, where participants went on an interactive walking tour of Cascades and provided feedback on the future of downtown. The KCCI Project Showcase and Reveal invited attendees to celebrate the 2019 Red Hills Rhythm and be the first to learn about the 2020 community bicycle park project. The Village Square’s Dinner & Conversation event themed around “Local Patriotism: Loving Your Country by Loving Your City” also hosted nearly 100 participants for a night of productive dialogue.
Community members were excited to participate in Placemaking Week; over 1,000 people joined in activities throughout the entire week. Attendees shared how excited they were to be contributing to sustainable local projects alongside other active citizens. It was the high level of community participation that sparked a unique sense of place in various local spaces throughout the week.
Thank you to the Tallahassee community members who participated throughout Placemaking Week and KCCI sponsors and partners that made the week possible: NAI TALCOR, Sherwin Williams, Bar at Betton, Tallahassee Downtown, Tallahassee Hot Yoga Studio, The Edison, Rootstock and Goodwood Museum.
Placemaking Week received newspaper coverage from Tallahassee Democrat, here, and FSView & Florida Flambeau, here.
It was also featured in broadcast features by WCTV, here, and WTXL, here.
To see a list of partners and for more details, click here.