Six Lexington-based proposals have made the cut as finalists for the third annual Knight Cities Challenge, a competition that provides $5 million in funding to be shared among winning ideas for improving Knight Foundation communities.
The competition gathered more than 4,500 proposals from nonprofit and government organizations, as well as design experts, urban planning groups and individual citizens, in 26 cities where the Knight Foundation is invested. The Lexington competitors represent six of 144 total finalists named in this year’s challenge.
The challenge itself invites submissions that focus on one or more of the Knight Foundation’s three identified drivers of city success: attracting and retaining talent, expanding economic opportunities and spurring civic engagement.
This year’s Lexington-based finalists include three projects centered along the expanding North Limestone corridor and two projects that aim to engage citizens about civic concerns.
Griffin VanMeter, a prominent north side entrepreneur and community activist, continues his streak of Knight Cities Challenge submission successes with two new projects tied to the North Limestone Community Development Corp., which he helped found. “Build Up” by NoLi CDC would create a neighborhood-owned hardware store that would double as a skills training hub. “Plant & Play” by NoLi CDC would build a community garden and play area in Castlewood Park. In addition, “Booths to Bricks” by National Main Street Center would help vendors who take part in the neighborhood’s popular Night Market events in efforts to open real-world stores.
“The three ideas that NoLi CDC are involved with all are direct community engagement yields from our NEA funded North Limestone Cultural Plan — helping neighbors start businesses, building a hardware store, providing job training, further activating our parks, growing healthy food and creating space for physical well being and play,” said VanMeter, a NoLi CDC board member.
And Richard Young, the former executive director of NoLi CDC, submitted a winning bid this round for ProgressLex: “Civiclex.org: A Platform for an Informed Civic Democracy,” which would create a digital platform to boost civic engagement.
“Understanding what is happening in local government is essential to being a good citizen, but for many, the workday schedule of most city meetings makes it difficult to engage on a routine basis,” Young said. “CivicLex will help bring more daylight to these issues by being an additional ear in the room and providing the public with clear and accurate information about what is happening in their city.”
“Retrofitting the RETRO: Rediscover Southland” by LexArts promises “site-specific art and pop-up installations along a disjointed strip mall.”
“Retrofitting the Retro is the creation of a pedestrian-friendly environment for the arts and retail along Southland Drive,” said Nathan Zamarron, community arts director for LexArts. “A festival with interactive sculptures and musical performances will invite residents and visitors to explore the neighborhood along new sidewalks [already in the works] and artistic crosswalks.”
Perhaps the most novel project was submitted by A’yen Tran of the Office for Creative Research seeks to demystify big data through the power of bluegrass music.
“We plan to work with Kentucky traditional bluegrass and mountain music players to find novel ways to share information about Lexington civic data sets,” Tran said. “We create ways of expressing meaning in large data sets and make them understandable to broad audiences. … The result will seek to trace a through line from Kentucky’s traditional music through through Kentucky today as revealed by civic data sets.”
Lexington projects have made a strong showing in previous years of the Knight Cities Challenge. In the inaugural year, NoLi CDC was awarded the competition’s second largest grant — $550,000 — to create a food hub and small-business incubator in the former Greyhound bus terminal on North Limestone. That project is still in development. Last year’s top local grant winner was “Phoenix Forward” by the Lexington Public Library, which was awarded $150,200 to build programing incorporating the Central Library and the adjacent Phoenix Park. BL