Planning for Brownsville Road, One District at a Time

Jackson/Clark Partners and our team from Urban Partners worked with our clients at Economic Development South to share our work to date on market analysis and planning for the Brownsville Road Corridor in Carrick and Brentwood. Our 6 month project will develop a plan to revitalize one of the Pittsburgh area’s longest commercial corridors by focusing on market positioning and improvements in each of 8 distinct commercial nodes along Brownsville Road.

Click here to access our community presentation on the project overview and preliminary findings for each of the 8 Brownsville Corridor Districts. Planning work in one of these key districts – the Dairy District – focuses on leveraging Pittsburgh’s only in-city diary to allow the Colteryahn Dairy to serve as a catalyst for redevelopment, and is already receiving attention in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Props to PGH’s Urban Forest Master Plan

The work that Tree Pittsburgh and its collaborative partners in the Pittsburgh Urban Forest Master Plan has been recognized by the folks at Next City! Props to our friends and clients, our partners at Davey Resources, and all of the good trees (and tree people) of Pittsburgh!

Read about it at this link.

Hazelwood Community Launches its New Trail

Jackson/Clark Partners led work in organizing a June 15, 2012 community celebration of the newly opened Hazelwood section of the Heritage Trail. JCP worked with our clients at the Heinz Endowments and the Hazelwood Initiative, along with community partners including the Center of Life, Fishes and Loaves, the Hazelwood YMCA, the Hazelwood branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Mon-Marsden Block Club, in collaboration with Friends of the Riverfront, Bike Pittsburgh and Venture Outdoors.

The community celebration was designed to help launch this major new investment in green transportation infrastructure for the Hazelwood community, build better access for the community to the ALMONO site, and to further redevelopment efforts of ALMONO site and Hazelwood. JCP helped capture community input from attendees on their vision for a revitalized Hazelwood community.

Photo courtesy Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette

Planning a New Vision for Lawrence County

Jackson/Clark Partners and New Visions for Lawrence County held two planning sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, May 16 and 17, 2012. A range of over 25 community leaders participated in planning sessions designed to set a strategy and framework for creating a new community plan.

Outcomes from the Wednesday and Thursday sessions are now available for review, as well as the session presentation. You can also review responses to our summary question from Wednesday participants and Thursday participants.

New Visions leadership will use session outcomes to continue to work with the community of New Castle and Lawrence County to develop a community-driven plan that begins to implement key first priorities as a part of the planning process.

GBA – Innovative Strategies + New Plan

Green Building Alliance (GBA) recently unveiled a new three-year organizational strategic plan that focuses on supporting healthy and high performance places throughout Western Pennsylvania. Jackson/Clark Partners was proud to have led the GBA strategic planning team, which included  consulting partners Jennifer Flanagan and Fourth Economy Consulting.

We’re excited to invite you to take up GBA’s invitation to review their new strategic plan, and we thank GBA, its staff, board and partners for consideration and vision during the planning process. We’re also appreciative to over 30 partners and experts who participated in our project interviews and innovation sessions.

Key initiatives within the plan will prove the value of “going green” to an even broader market, with a focus on existing buildings and validating the green building business case.  They include the Green Building Challenge, a Green Schools Academy, and DASH (a database of building performance information).

New Visions / New Org / New Plan

New Visions for Lawrence County is working with Jackson/Clark Partners on the first stages of undertaking a community plan. This initiative is also a part of the first efforts to establish New Visions for Lawrence County as a presence in New Castle and the surrounding county and communities.

Find out more about New Visions courtesy of their first feature article in the New Castle Times.

Environmental Education Innovation

JCP partnered with PARC, LLC of Austin, TX in 2011 to work with the citizens and partners of Willacy County, Texas in planning for the Willacy County Environmental Education Program. Jackson/Clark helped identify shared priorities and develop a framework for the initiative, incorporating outcomes from a collaborative planning session held on Friday, November 19, 2010 in Raymondville, TX.

We’re excited that the Willacy program is now up and running – or floating – with the launch of their floating classroom program.

The Texas Sea Grant College Program’s floating classroom, also known as Karma, is currently cruising the waters of the Laguna Madre near Port Isabel/South Padre Island, introducing public school students to the lagoon’s unique marine ecosystem.

The Willacy initiative partnered with Dr. Richard Kline at The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and a grant from Willacy County allowed Port Mansfield to provide this unique first-hand environmental learning experience for fourth through eighth grade students from the Lasara, San Perlita and Lyford school districts, as well as Icthyology students from UTB.

To find out more, take a look at the Laguna Point Recreation Area’s February and January newsletters.

Jackson/Clark salutes our friends and clients in Willacy and is excited to see the results of our planning set sail!

Helping Pittsburgh Tell Our Tree Story

Tree Pittsburgh and its steering committee project partners are creating Pittsburgh’s first-ever Urban Forest Master Plan and are asking everyone in Pittsburgh to participate and tell their tree story. Jackson/Clark is helping to engage the public to gather surveys from across the city, and to capture people’s personal tree stories on video. We’d like you to Tell Us Your Tree Story at TellUsYourTreeStory.org.

Take a couple of minutes to take our survey, send us your video, and learn how to volunteer to help us get community input that will help make Pittsburgh’s the best Urban Forest Master Plan ever!

Green Buildings for a greener region

Jackson/Clark Partners’ work with Pittsburgh’s Green Building Alliance – GBA – continues as we partner to develop an updated organizational strategic plan.

JCP and our project partners at Fourth Economy led GBA and several  of its partners through 5 innovation sessions focused on key aspects of GBA’s work and potential market opportunities. Summary outcomes of these sessions are being compiled and will serve as the basis for creating the strategic vision and priorities for GBA’s new strategic plan.

Next project steps will include a mission/vision session and development of a strategic framework prior to the delivery of the final strategic plan.

Talking Trees

Tree Pittsburgh continues to make progress in preparing to begin developing Pittsburgh’s Urban Forest Master Plan. On October 5, 2011, Tree Pittsburgh invited 25 friends, community partners and project steering committee members to participate in an initial idea session designed to identify simple, fun and accessible strategies to incorporate into an effective public outreach and participation process. Outcomes of the session are available for review:

• Question 1 – What are your experiences with trees?
• Question 2 – How can bring the planning process to the community?
• Question 3 – What are some fun ways to share + gather info?
• Question 4 – What do we call this?

These outcomes will help Jackson/Clark and Tree Pittsburgh develop a public outreach and participation plan that best support the Urban Forest Master Plan by bringing the planning process to the community and ensuring that Pittsburgh residents have an active role in developing the final plan.

Tree Pittsburgh began to undertake Urban Forest Master Planning starting in Summer 2010, when it worked with Jackson/Clark to bring together over 50 experts and partners in a collaborative planning session. Participants worked together to define what should be a part of a successful Urban Forest Master Plan. The outcomes of the session helped Tree Pittsburgh create Trees for the Future, their framework for the development of the first ever master plan for the Pittsburgh urban forest. The Master Plan project is led by Tree Pittsburgh and a project steering committee that includes over a dozen partner organizations.

The Trees for the Future initiative is guiding Tree Pittsburgh and a range of partner organizations into immediate action on creating a master plan for our City’s unique green environment. Actual planning work will begin starting this Fall, and will conclude with a Spring 2012 launch of the completed Urban Forest Master Plan. Jackson/Clark Partners will work with TreePittsburgh during this planning phase to  develop and implement public outreach and participation in support of the planning.

JCP is excited to work on the initial stages of the project as a continuation of our work in bringing sustainability into communities across the City, to support Pittsburgh’s one of a kind urban wilderness, and to help ensure a better environmental future for our community.