E. Grand Blvd. Transformation — Follow up Focus Group (April 22)

10:55PM Apr 22, 2021

Speakers:

Andrew Kopietz

Julia Kowalski

Marja Farrow

Louis Gelinas (North End Resident)

Keywords:

boulevard

people

question

design

built

community

north

space

thinking

brand

talking

place

neighborhood

walk

signage

focus

history

meeting

feedback

welcoming

As with the technology glitch. Okay, great. Well, um, let's move on to briefly reviewing the roles and responsibilities.

Sure, okay. So who is this is one of several touch points but this is specifically focus will group have a diverse range of stakeholders that we asked to come together to be a part of this project. So I think the roles and responsibilities were outlined in the email that you receive are just really quickly to remind you of that. All we're asking you that you attend all focus groups. We're glad that although you were able to attend the first meaning you were able to join us tonight, so thank you again for making time for that. We're anticipating that there will be a second focus group, it may June and so soon as that data is finalized, we'll make sure that we give that to you. We're also asking that members of the focus will represent Brock says they represent a broad coalition of community stakeholders that you be responsible for communicating what was discussed here with your larger stakeholder group your neighbors and people that you're affiliated with, and bring input also back from the root. So, a two way communication and then also to provide critical feedback so making sure information produces contextually accurate and relevant. Making sure once we get to the design phase that they represent the ideas discussed during the previous workshop so some accountability measures there and then last but not least, providing general support for the design direction as we go along.

Excellent. I'm all for it. And then I'm talking specifically with Grover Sen who's the president my block club who asked me to kind of be point on data so I've got some very important the presentation, I've got like sort of like, you know, the simple initial feedback from the group and I'll certainly carry the mail back on that the next block club meeting. Awesome, thank you. That'll be especially helpful part of our engagement strategy is a community survey that we're disseminating at a large scale so you may have received an email about it already. We have a link on the Vanguard website as well so definitely we'd love for you to send out the link to the survey, and the Vanguard website where there's more project information to your blog club.

Perfect.

And we'll also have, we're working on mailers and things like that so if another helpful thing would, for you to be sharing with your neighbors that hey check out like keep your eye on the mail you'll be receiving something about this project, things of that nature. And with that I'll just briefly talk about our what we've heard slides. So I just want to talk a little bit about some of the work we're doing to review past plans, we know that the work around East Grand Boulevard has been going on for the last 10 years and that that's kind of a bunch of planning studies happening in the area and so the dc dc, which is the acronym for Detroit clavate collaborative design center. Um, we've been reading through all these plans and sort of reviewing the asset mapping and the other main takeaways from them, and are keeping them in mind and incorporating them in our site analysis and in our, in our design. And just to be brief, some of the previous planning efforts in the neighborhood have focused on things like business attraction and retention, focus on education, employment, housing and vacant land usage safety and security may repeat location and technology. And so we were thinking about and reviewing all those documents and seeing how those themes could be exemplified and celebrated in our design as well. You know we're building on past information not starting from scratch here so we're very excited about that. And then I also wanted to say. So part of our part of our engagement strategy is having this focus group, and then we also have the community outreach strategy, like I mentioned before, and we're also going to be talking with and working with youth engaging youth to get their thoughts around the streetscape design, and we are also going to be talking with some safety experts so based on our first focus group, we actually got some feedback to talk to people about safety specifically and youth specifically and so we're excited to be expanding our strategy and incorporating those other meetings as well.

Perfect.

And then the next slide is q&a so if you have any, any thoughts or questions, off the top of your head, based on what I've said so far we love to hear from you.

Yeah I just My first question is, are there more materials like is this like q&a in the middle or is this like q&a at the end.

Um, this is like q&a Right now,

we're doing in the middle. Yeah, okay, yeah, that's, I'll just hold my questions. Oh no,

you can ask them, you can ask them right now,

like, Oh yeah, sure. I guess I'm just not sure if the questions I have. Oh okay your materials. Okay, sorry,

sorry. Thanks for clicking.

No worries.

So I think that the rest of the presentation is more geared towards specific questions about you know getting your input so if you have I guess questions about anything that's related to what we've gone through already. It will be okay at this point because the rest is more

discussion and giving your input type of deal for sure. So I'll say, you know, I think this is excellent. It sounds like you're engaging the right people, I hope you're kind of first making this a little bit better intended. You guys are reaching out, and I'm glad I'm able to make this connected here but for the lower north and black people in our bar club open businesses on brand. Obviously, you know, everything that happens on brand is like very relevant to us. And I think everybody's like very supportive of like the things you're trying to accomplish. I'm glad you guys are bringing them safety people, because like of my talking points that's probably the only relevant one is dangerous, and when you're coming home, you got to make the left turn off the brand onto brush, you got to make a left turn off of Britain on the boat. Yes. That's dangerous. I'll miss people the accidents there and basically whatever is done with this streetscape, you know that safety of being able to see you know who's coming west, when I'm trying to make that left turn into my neighborhood and that's kind of the most, I guess the relevant thing I would surfaces you know the design everything like that business, whatever you do you think it's beautiful, as people might construct our opinions to be faithful more I think it's beautiful. But I think that's the one thing is being mindful and there's been, like, some things that have been planted in the middle that are more dangerous there's been some things that have been, you know there's a lot of things you can do without that, but I think that's kind of, I think the most, like, you know what is the lower north and black club worried about they're worried about getting hit, and then make a left turn, because it can't see oncoming traffic, which is like really, I think probably easy to design around. That's kind of the number one concern.

Yeah that's great and, um, well, you'll also see, we'll send you a link to the website that'll have all of the notes and everything from the previous conversation as well, but you'll see in previous conversations that exact topic and those exact intersections have been brought up so it's definitely good to see from numerous sources.

Oh absolutely. And honestly it really for me that like basically. Yeah, that sounds like yeah they heard that from all sorts of folks. And that's great, cuz like basically whenever you do it's obviously going to be, you know, an improvement, especially if you guys are able to bring in resources from a foundation or from the city support it. I like any improvement, it's good. I mean, yeah, that's great.

I mean, you have any other questions or we can just dive right into the discussion at this point.

Let's dive in.

So, um, I also wanted to say that these slides that were reviewed today are the exact same slides basically that we went through a new focus group so in black are the notes that in that meeting, so you can kind of, and then I highlighted some of the main things that people were saying in that meeting as well, right three yellow.

And so the everything

that we talked about today will be in blue, I just

wanted to note that the black person.

So, the first question that we have is we like to start off with this sort of visioning question. So, for you, moving to imagine that you're on the Boulevard and imagining, you know what sort of activities are you doing, are you most commonly drive

walk or bike

when you're traveling down the boulevard where you have to, what sorts of things and seeing along the way. Do you smell anything. What songs are playing in your earbuds, we would love to hear about your sensory experience of a boulevard.

Oh, for sure. So I have four kids who ride our bikes up and down the boulevard, usually gets like pink circle from both from noon down, Oak Lane, and up the boulevard probably it's like Rush and then either go to the farm or go to the park. You want to burn off some energy before you get to the park but you can, you know a lot of my because I like to be young and like really, I'm always doing it, you know, when I know because I get to enjoy walking also I've been marked by myself, especially would like to lock down on the house after work from home, and I'll go to. There's been two coffee shops have opened up in like the last 18 months. I'll go there. And so basically, like, you know what I experienced now, it's like it's always nice to like circle around and just see like how things are going and when I said grow into usually somebody working on something. I have a very optimistic view, but there's usually somebody working on something and you're like hey maybe one of these vacant buildings is gonna get activated and like quite a few of them have that's really encouraging. And then the other thing is you know really, it looks like a Detroit Bulevar like everybody thought this was, and it probably was very worked out. But people thought this kind of architecture was friendly, you know like the idea of a boulevard and two lanes going each way and a median and this was like, what it was built with a monument to how great America is and how great Detroit is because they get all this space for cars, and definitely walked out and now it feels a little deep. And I know you're not adjusting the winning sizes you're not adjusting the walkway sizes I know it's still. Next, we're tie 75 You got to come off 94 And come door, and I know we're not moving the highways on but there's definitely something about the boulevard that feels dated. Because now what people want is for things to be friendly to walking like crossing the boulevard with my kids is sometimes a little stressful, you know as much as I can walk, you know, it's like nice, like the outdoor for my kids. It's definitely you know there's not a, you know crosswalk signage, things like that I'm kind of rambling now but I just want to let you know like, I like I'm always happy to be on the Boulevard, I'm excited to see what's happening but it's always like a little bit you know like feels a little bit dated, and it feels a little bit dangerous, you know, because it's not built for cars not for my family.

Um, what are some things, like if you're imagining the future that you want to see when you're walking down the boulevard, like what sorts of things come to mind as that would make the boulevard a friendly place to walk.

Yeah absolutely like a place to stop. Would be great, especially like deciding like want him to like a place that is like public and welcoming and I know I'm not worried about like building things that'll be welcoming for like the homeless population, I think we have you know architecture that supports people of all types, so but yeah basically like a benches or a pocket park or something like that, like on the Boulevard, especially, you know, there's, there's a lot of like development going in. That's gonna like bring people and like people like the outside people like to do free space groundbreaking things and like some deliberate space for that and as part of this would be great.

Are there any points that come to mind that you're sort of like thinking about women saying, Oh events would be great. Um, and I wish it was, in this particular place like perhaps longer walk or something like

that. Yeah, um, you know, that's great, it's hard to think of something outside of the doors Bennett Park. The art, yeah the farm is great. My kids love going to the farm. The other place there's like a couple like nicer vacant locks, and it's just great place like bro, the Balkan a dog, I don't think you want that like on the Boulevard itself though but that park is like what I think the most, you know there's parts of the park that are obviously very designed for, you know, just stop and setting, and you know that's honestly nice when you're on a walk with your kids.

Um, are there any places along the boulevard that you would be that you would be ideal places to sit and ponder around arrest for a while.

Yeah, absolutely. On the right side, um, you know that's where the residential housing is I know there's a lot of like condos and apartments and stuff like that going in on like the south side. Like something along the north side, you know, there's, there's some vacant land, there's, you know, some opportunities when you get to Great Lakes. That big building, there's some more things like that there. My wife likes to go all the way to Woodward I usually turn off, on, on brush, but I would say anything on the north side. In between Woodward and Oakland would be very well.

It's interesting that you say that because I'm myself, and I should have also said that some of our other co workers at CCC are not able to attend tonight for a conflict but the landscape architect from our office Charles cross. He Allison and I have all walked the boulevard a couple of times and it is interesting because there is, there are so many more street trees on the north side but then the south side, like consistently. So it's interesting that it already has this sort of like pedestrian scale. And, yeah, having benches, maybe, you know, alongside some of those treats to be nice as well.

Absolutely, I think that'd be very nice.

Um, are there any songs or any sort of like other senses that you, that commonly get activated when you're traveling on the Boulevard, smells, things of that nature.

Oh no, that I mean that's not necessarily like my. I usually just focused on my kids right and like I said maybe it is a little I'll be honest like yeah especially with my kids age and then on bikes and stuff like a little anxious, you know, so usually I'm like focused rather than just like damage, you know, making sure things aren't enough industry. That's great.

Well, let's, let's, we kind of started talking about this a little bit but I would love to hear more about, you know, thinking about the future a little bit more, and thinking about in the future when you, when you imagine the future of the streetscape up the boulevard, how would you want it to feel so safe and comfortable are some things that kind of touched on So, so far but wondering if you could speak a little bit more to that. In the past, actually, if I could, I'll share a little bit more about what people have been the first focus group pension. There are a lot of responses about celebrating the history of the place. So thinking about using visual art, or just opportunities for gathering, whether it be musicians playing music, or signage or kiosks that could share about the history of the place. I'm recognizing that the Boulevard is tributary to a lot of projects that might not necessarily be honorable apart so how could this be the wayfinding for different signage, how can that speak to the culture and other activities and murals. Within the boulevard suites everything happening around it as well. Um, yeah, I think I'll stop there, I could go on, but people really talked a lot about, sort of, relaxed, strolling type of vibe that would encourage people to spend time on the Boulevard,

walk, and gather. Yeah, you I think you absolutely nailed it. Um, there's one thing we had a big conversation right before COVID went down, how I made this document that way if you know what kind of things does a blog club want to see develop like an area in general and one is, you know, it took into account the fact that like, like retail is not strongly trending, but experiences really are like people want to go out to be in place that is a good experience, not necessarily because they need buy right and needing to buy a thing, used to be like drove downtown spray and it's just as a space that kind of like welcomes that future, like we're coming here because you want to experience like I think the coffee shop goes a long way but it's just like a star right that's just like one thing that serves like one small group of people, um, but this idea that you know there can be performance there oh that's great. Yeah, I think I kind of want to offer you so I was in the army and I move around a lot, but I got to live in, like, a lot of cool places and lived in an old city in Italy, and I lived in Georgetown, Texas, which everything in Texas probably claims to be the best but I claim to have the cutest downtown and like all of Texas, and like, I think, historical facts, go a long way, right, because it's a place where like you can tell, you can tell a story, you can provide a narrative, you can commemorate a person or a thing and just knowing, like I don't know the history of the Bulevar right and the mural that's up there on the new platform building is nice and I like and it's great actually met that folk who was painting, who was painted on that after the painting was done because she's got young kids and lives in the north end too. But just there's, there's a lot of opportunity for things like that but I think the written word as much as like not everybody reads plaques I told you I do and I did want me to, um, you know, so just something like that, something commemorative I think would be great. Yeah, that's just what I meant.

Um, you mentioned you all had a document, have you put a document together. Do you think, would you all be able to share that with with me so we can keep it and review as a part of our site analysis.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll carry the mail back and make sure that it's sent over like in the right way, like obviously we Tronic okay so but I think no point of us making it and assigning it. We're supposed to share it. So that'll be one of my action items coming out of

suite. Yeah, that'd be great. And, um, you know not to say you know we have given for a reason, you know, the scope is limited but it would be great to continue to learn all the context of what people are thinking about and talking about a new area,

so that would be awesome. For sure. And, yeah, let me actually just put my email in the chat right now,

just so that

I actually know you have my email says that you go into this. We're already connected. Great.

Perfect. Sorry. Thursday evening, great. We're working on it. Okay.

Well that is great. That is great to hear. And I, yeah I like the way that you talked about retail versus experience.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's tough because like those are two things that are tough to kind of come to terms with what one I talked about was like the space was clearly designed for cars into, you know, the intersection and really a lot of things were clearly designed for retail, because like when the Detroit is really growing like that's what it was and that's kind of like now that the future is that we can really, we can still have a lot of relevant opportunities, you know in this space, right, we just got to know what's coming in, be directed towards.

Exactly, and we kind of actually answered, our next question, which was asking about how history can be recognized in the boulevard streetscape so you kind of answered two questions at once there. So I'm just going to keep moving along because I know it is 715 And we did say 630 to 730.

Um,

and we also our next question is, we've heard that walkability is a priority for the North End what would encourage you to walk to or down the boulevard and you've also kind of answered that question but if there's anything else that comes to mind that, that you think would make a boulevard, a more friendly, safe, welcoming place we'd love to hear what that might be.

No, I feel like you got it. Um, like I said I really like folks who are walking like it would be great because it already is something I do, because like, you know my family needs it's it's important to me but it would be great if this space was extremely welcoming for people to come, you know from the north and just like lockdown I do enjoy it and I know most of the zoning, and most of the occupied buildings are actually you know like, on the south side, but I didn't even know this so they're like all the trees are on the north side. It's also interesting like the sunshine on the north side right obviously everything on the south side is always in the shade because like we're in the, in the northern hemisphere, so I think I'm safe and welcoming like I said like benches go a long way, and then the other thing is that, like, just, you want to you want to feel that separation between you and where cars are moving fast and whatever you can do with the designs like reinforced that both motorists and pedestrians like that's just good, yeah. I don't know what that is. Oh,

yeah that's that's great we definitely, there's many ways to slow down traffic and that's what that's kind of our jam, so we will definitely be thinking about my you've mentioned welcoming a couple of times, I would love to review a little bit on that and just hear what you because welcoming people, people will use that word in a very broad sense, but I would love to hear you. If you could talk a little bit about what types of things feel welcome to you. As far as, as it relates to the Sweet Sweet or Publix Yes,

I think, very simply, a place to sit and things that are colorful are probably if I had to pick like two things, like, a place to sit and things that are colorful are certainly more welcoming had no place to sit and read or concrete.

There's a lot of concrete, a lot of concrete planters on a brutalist architecture,

naturally, there's a lot of concrete. I mean like, that was a jam right, like that's what that's what that's what the people want it, that's what the future held. So I don't blame them for building it right but we kind of think the future is gonna look a little different now.

And we've kind of, we actually kind of combined a lot of our questions so it's been a very efficient conversation. Our next question was about identifying locations for benches and planters, but we've, we've also kind of talked about that right from the beginning.

Um, So at this point I think our last question is about branding and digital identity, and so on to this point. Yeah, thanks, Julia. So, um, my question was when you think about your community and the kinds of images or maybe icons and symbols or colors that come to mind. What kinds of things come to mind. I mean, I mean example in our last, our cursory conversation with a lot of the Northern residents, they spoke a lot about its history and its lineage to music as an expression of the community's past, but also maybe in a contemporary way of expressing its present across banners and other forms of signage that permeate the boulevard, which I thought was a really insightful comment that came from a lot of people. Music is obviously very deeply interwoven into the Northam community we have a lot of great people that have come out of that, that place. And I'm wondering, are there other themes or things that just sort of visually come to mind when you think about your community, and maybe what you might like to be engaged by through the banners that hang on the Boulevard, because if we think about it, banners and signage kind of give you a sense of place that very explicitly tells you where you are and that you've entered a specific zone. And so how can we do that.

Yeah, that's great, and it's like kind of really hard, because any danger you get to the north end is really going to capture like an era of it. Like, even further, act like, and I don't know the exact concept but there's actually like a Jewish neighborhood at 1.2. And then there was like many like errors and like have come and gone and that's what I really, I know probably banners are like simply for like role and responsibility right. But that's why I'm like very for like the written word, right, rather than having to capture, you know, in a feeling or an image to hit screen which is ultimately like a snapshot, right a narrative, like given kind of give the bigger spectrum, you know. So even though you asked about the enter my my thought it because he went back away. Commemoration work and plaques in the history and the names and the who and the dates, you know, because there's room for all of these things to be true at the same time because they all off. Right, and everybody wants to have that context when they're in a space is to know what's come before them. And yet, so I guess that's just what I'd offer, it's just that your job sounds super hard to like capture in my god that's not straightforward. It's really complicated, right. Yeah, I

think the way that we think about it is, there are a lot of different views and perspectives point of views that come from people and their experiences legacy residents people who have lived there for 30 years and people who have lived there like yourself for only a couple, and we want to be very conscious of those, the way that people kind of visualize their space and then in some visual form express that and what good graphic designers would call and identity are kind of brand, but what's interesting and I said this at the first meeting is that Eastern Boulevard and the communities that connect to it are not a business they're not a corporation. They don't inhabit the same space as a brand that has very exciting mission and vision and kind of principle values that you have to express that makes people love it and fall in love with it. We have to treat it in a different way, it's a physical place that people inhabit and through their kind of cohabitation of the space, that's what makes the brand you know all of these different intermingling perspectives and thoughts and so we just want to make sure that we're very conscious of that and listening to people. And so I appreciate your feedback, and we'd love it if anything else comes to mind post meeting that you feel comfortable on submitting that to us.

Yeah, I guess I'll just float one thing for you here kind of one of my favorite people that Maddie Vickery she's older. I think he's 70 or 80, as he comes to a meeting, are you guys better had not got

that yeah I don't think so.

Like you said you're very old it's just get out there and live with Vicki. Vicki is a veteran, as well. So, but Nabil as soon as the fingers are like very, very long time that we would like people who were at the factory lift up the name. And there's also that big part of the history there like everything was built around the same time, around the same purpose. This is like people that go to work and walk to work and work this back. And there's this interesting part of the history of the North end as well. That's really cool. It gets down into the partial sizes, and that he talks about like basically the difference between management streets and working class screens, but like the history of the neighborhood also kind of been like kind of like the incomes and the classes and things like that have always been based, right, it wasn't this later wave of development, where it was about like the suburbs and the Serbs and like basically segregated by class and segregated by race and it's like from this time where it's like basically, we all got to go to work, and there's not transportation to get everywhere now with my duplex that I live in was built in the 1911 Right. So I think that's just something I don't know if that's going to be necessarily useful for like their exact condition but that's really, that's really great. That's part of the identity. I love hear that story from Matt is off, it's always kind of been a melting pot of backgrounds, right, because the neighborhood was built to support you know people from different backgrounds with different roles at the factory living in community together.

Thank you for sharing that. From if I had to summarize kind of what you're saying it sounds like there isn't any myopic view of the boulevard, that in fact, it's as I said earlier in the first meeting, it's like a constellation of a lot of different people and experiences and so, paying homage to that honoring that acknowledging that for the design of things. It sounds like it is, it's a, it's a brand with visual elements that are very people focused, You know, in whatever form that manifests.

Yeah,

kind of, well thank you so much, I appreciate your feedback.

And so I'm kind of to close this one and say thanks again Louis for coming today. And we, we do have the link to the community survey that is in the slides but also on food and a follow up email to you

and then,

um, you know, you just had one small conversation with me about branding and visual identity but if you are other neighbors for example if Maddie might be interested in attending other branding workshops or participating in the granting survey will provide links

to that as well.

And then if you or anyone you know, would like to be involved with the artistic neighborhood sign March I mentioned earlier, Carlos mailbox is working on that sign but there's also focus groups for community input and feedback. As part of that as well. So many ways to get involved.

Yeah, for sure, please hit me up on the emails out here to the mailbag from the black club I think that represented, I was I was really cool, it's a good opportunity to bring that experience into there Maddie, it's like very well respected person numberblock Club is the oldest member of our blog. And then the other thing is great to just renew my safety concern, because like that's kind of like the first thing on top of everybody's mind. It's like, Yeah, we love plants, but the our new dwelling here God don't put the plants where it makes it dangerous for me to get help, right, which I think that sounds like you guys got the right people to nail on that. So yeah, this has just been really productive I appreciate everybody's time, like especially because you're all here and it's like just me, you know you guys are obviously we were. And I appreciate that hopefully I did right by you guys as well. And it's cool, It'll be great to see this like come full circle actually just remember the last time I worked with you guys is a green space planning workshop in like 2015 I would, it's kind of funny because I think the development plan out to like build like townhouses like where that green space expansion was supposed to be, but it sounds like this is focused on implementation not ideation, and it sounds like maybe like what we're talking about is actually going to be like what comes full circle and that'd be really, really encouraging.

Awesome.

I think you summarized it really well, that's exactly the point. And it's right on vacation, so you'll be able to see in the future. Hey, this is where, you know this left turn on Eastern Boulevard is not as dangerous or scary as it used to be. Yeah, thank you so much.

I mean, I

thank you for all of your thoughts and feedback. I thank you for your time. It's nice to meet you, and we'll be emailing you, a bunch of times over the next couple weeks

right with you. Take care. God say.