Upcoming Charrettes to envision future

The meetings are held to find ways to engage residents and advocates

The next round of Lorain Charrettes will ask community members to envision ways to make the city the “jewel of the North Coast.”

After a successful round of meetings in March 2017, the Lorain Historical Society will move forward with a new series of four charrettes meetings beginning on Sept. 26 to move forward in creating the city they envision.

A series of eight grassroots organizing sessions, the meetings were held to find a way to engage Lorain residents and community advocates about ways to improve the quality of life in the city. The meetings allowed facilitators to reach a cross-section of residents covering a range of proposals from economic development, city beautification efforts and ways to foster community pride in harnessing the city’s identity as the International City.

Harnessing the potential of the Broadway Ave.

streetscape project and the Lorain County Lakefront Connectivity Plan, the charrettes will ask guests to think big in imagining Lorain’s potential and what it will take to realize it.

“In case anybody missed it, these are things that are actually happening right now,” said facilitator Eric Newsome. The idea is we are just wetting their whistle and saying what else?”

Culminating with a May 10 celebration at the Lorain Palace Theater, the four facilitators made up of Newsome, Michelle Mrdenovich, Casandra Epps and Bartholomew Gonzalez came together on the project through common interests in improving the city as a direct result of the charrettes process.

Asking guests, ‘why are you #LorainProud today, the refined initiative will narrow down what is necessary to move the city forward.

Newsome emphasized the next round will promote getting individuals working together and to people with similar interests and goals talking to each other.

“That next step in the process, we still want that to be a part of it. But the next step gets to the next level to get individuals working together. And that is one of the goals of this next round of charrettes,” Newsome said.

The new series of meetings hopes to dig deeper and get more specific in imaging Lorain and its potential. Guests who attend the next round of charrettes will be handed a hypothetical headline entitled “Lorain: Jewel of the North Coast” which imagines what the city could look like as a result of a campaign such as #LorainProud.

“I think in reading the newspaper article we want people to know that this could appear in The Morning Journal ten years from now. And that ‘Lorain: Jewel of the North Coast’ is well on its way to becoming reality,” said Lorain Historical Society executive director Barb Piscopo.

Newsome, who is passionate about active transportation noted the transformation coming with the ongoing construction of US Route 6 and other aspects of Lorain which have the potential to bring people to the area.

“Bike lanes are going down when they repave it. And Metro Parks has gotten all the land they need to do stage four of the trail system up here to the lake at Century Park. There are a lot of things going on here and the goal is to get people to realize that and to generate new ideas and realize that they have a voice,” he said.

The second round of the Lorain Charrettes take place from Sept. 26 through Sept. 30:

Sept. 26 at 1 p.m. : #1104 Union Hall, 2501 Broadway Ave.

Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. : Croatian Club, 4846 Oberlin Ave.

Sept. 28 at 7 p.m.: El Centro, 2800 Pearl Ave.

Sept. 30 at 1 p.m.: Carnegie Center, 329 W. 10th St.