Neighbors and volunteers were out in force today, cleaning up the park in advance of next Saturday’s 2nd Annual Beechwood Park Festival.
Our award-winning architects at Gresham, Smith and Partners have now showcased our project in a gorgeous multimedia presentation. It tracks the nascent park’s history from the seedling of an idea nurtured by Highlands neighbors, to initial design, early rounds of fundraising, and last year’s construction groundbreaking.
Johnson
Combining virtual-reality video, illustrations, photos, and text, the presentation builds on Gresham Smith’s earlier marketing campaign. “A series of communication strategies were developed,” the firm says, “to assist Friends of Beechwood Park in refining their vision, creating a buzz within the community, leveraging private donations and grant funding, and taking the project from concept through to implementation.”
Project Manager Louis R. Johnson summarizes it best: “This project represents a true grassroots effort of neighborhood communities coming together, wanting to inspire change, and then doing something about it in their own front yard.”
The presentation is called “A Grassroots Community Effort.” You can watch it here. And check out the virtual-reality video of the park’s master plan, which debuted at last year’s first Annual Beechwood Park Festival. It’s best viewed with a VR headset, but you’ll get a flavor of it in this YouTube version.
Don’t miss this year’s festival, where we’ll celebrate all the progress we’ve made in the past year developing our new pocket park in the Highlands near Mid-City Mall. Entrance is free, and the public is invited to join all the fun.
We’ll feature a beer tent by Monnik Beer Co.; ValuMarket‘s grill; music by Squeeze-bot; Squallis Puppeteers and other kids’s activities, plus much more.
Please visit our festival invitation on Facebook. And follow us on our Facebook community page.
Last year, kids had fun blowing big bubbles and making chalk drawings.
The second Annual Beechwood Park Festival will celebrate all the progress we’ve made in the past year developing our new pocket park in the Highlands near Mid-City Mall. Entrance is free, and the public is invited to join all the fun.
We’ll feature a beer tent by Monnik Beer Co.; ValuMarket grill; music by Squeeze-bot; Squallis Puppeteers, and other children’s activities, plus much more.
Signarama of Louisville recently awarded a $500 grant for a new sign for Beechwood Park. Friends of Beechwood Park President Brian Caudill accepted the award from CEO Maggie Harlow at an event this month at Signarama’s downtown office.
Caudill and Harlow.
These three photos show the recently completed entrance, paved walk and hand-railing at the western end of the park — the first phase of work that started in December.
See it all in person during our upcoming volunteer day on April 14 starting at 10 a.m.
We’re going to build a walking path through the park, using donated mulch to spread. We’ll also paint a portion of the wall adjacent to the Mid-City Mall parking lot with chalk-board paint, so kids can draw on the wall.
Please bring rakes, and gloves if you have them. Wheelbarrows would also be helpful. We plan to have coffee and doughnuts!
When: April 14, starting at 10 a.m.
Accepting the award this month were the firm’s Jared Kaelin (middle) and Louis Johnson (right) from Joshua DeSpain, president of Kentucky ASLA.
Gresham, Smith and Partners has been honored by the Kentucky Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects with a Merit Award of Achievement for Communication for its work designing and promoting our neighborhood park.
GS&P’s team developed a conceptual plan and framework for the project and provided support for communication campaigns, helping the non-profit Friends of Beechwood Park sell the idea and raise funding through the use of virtual reality technology.
Last year, Friends of Beechwood Park obtained a $13,222 Neighborhood Development
Fund grant from Louisville Metro Council to start the first phase of construction. The total budget for the project is about $90,000.
GS&P accepted the award and other honors earlier this month at the professional organization’s annual meeting, held in Covington.
This was the fourth consecutive year the firm received awards from the KYASLA. GS&P was recognized as the Firm of the Year, honoring the firm’s commitment to landscape architecture and service to the community.
Our park achieved a huge milestone recently, when EZ Construction Co. of Louisville began the first phase of development at the southwest end of the property; it all started last month. This is the “Nature Play” space, an open children’s space with tree swings and natural playground equipment such as rocks and finished tree stumps to climb on. (See this design rendering for a fuller description.)
Here’s the backhoe operator at work (left) and the partial excavation for the play area:
