March 10, 2008

For the first time since its inception, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD) will make available post-Institute assistance to mayors to ensure that the lessons they learned at The Institute will be shared with their city staffs and other key community leaders.

Complementing the original MICD model, which invites mayors to bring their design case studies to a session to share with fellow mayors and a panel of nationally renowned design experts, this new Alumni Assistance program will invite a small team of design experts into a mayor’s community to perform a finer grain study of the project. The assistance will build upon the lessons learned during a mayor’s experience at an MICD session, using his or her city design case study as a starting point for continuing the dialogue. As no two cities share the exact same design challenges, the nature of the post-Institute assistance will be tailored to each city.

The Alumni Assistance program is made possible by a generous $250,000 gift from the Edward W. Rose III Family Fund of the Dallas Foundation, directed to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) by Mrs. Deedie Potter Rose, a former member of the National Council on the Arts (NCA), the NEA’s advisory body. The NEA initiated the Mayors’ Institute on City Design in 1986. NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said, “Because the design decisions that shape our cities have such lasting effects on our lives and the life of a city, we view the MICD as one of our most important programs. We are deeply grateful to our former NCA member Deedie Potter Rose for her generosity and support.”

MICD will pilot the new program throughout 2008, initially serving four mayors: Santa Rosa (CA) Mayor Bob Blanchard, Lincoln (NE) Mayor Chris Beutler; Cincinnati (OH) Mayor Mark Mallory, and Tulsa (OK) Mayor Kathy Taylor. The mayors selected to receive the first round of assistance were chosen based on a variety of criteria, including their respective cities’ design projects. In addition, the four awardees all demonstrated strong mayoral leadership and a keen willingness to act upon on the lessons they learned at the Mayors’ Institute. The type of assistance will vary in form, including public forums and internal leadership design charrettes. Participating cities will provide matching cash and in-kind support to bring the greatest level or resources to these communities. The alumni assistance component is expected to become a permanent part of MICD programming.

With news that his city had been selected to participate in the follow-up program, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory commented, “With assistance from the Mayors’ Institute, the city will be able to evaluate how to use the current assets of Walnut Hills to design a better community. This could serve as a model for other neighborhoods in Cincinnati. I look forward to working with the teams from the Mayors’ Institute.” Mallory, who attended the 37th Mayors’ Institute on City Design, led a workshop at the session on Walnut Hills, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.

Nebraska’s capital city is looking to capitalize on recent private redevelopment investments in the West Haymarket neighborhood, immediately adjacent to Lincoln’s commercial and civic core. Currently, the city is proposing a large mixed-use development, focused around a 15,000'seat indoor sports arena. A participant at the 40th Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler remarked, “I am pleased that the Mayors’ Institute on City Design shares my vision for what a new arena could mean to this community. We are honored to have our project chosen for the grant and I look forward to working with the team as we move forward to make this dream a reality,” said Beutler.

Further west, the City of Santa Rosa, California, is exploring an opportunity to create a civic center complex to house city government, performing arts, and visual arts facilities. When discussing the partnership between the City of Santa Rosa and MICD, Mayor Bob Blanchard noted “We have identified a vision that is bold and will establish new roles for our downtown. The vision can be strengthened if the community is able to draw on the expertise of the kinds of professionals MICD has assembled; providing us with objective advice on how to achieve our vision, how to avoid false starts or unrealistic expectations, and how to build a solid consensus that leads to action that can be sustained.”

Tulsa, also on the slate of cities to receive technical assistance, will receive support as its mayor and her City staff continue to examine redevelopment opportunities for a 22-acre parcel of City-owned land known as the “The Evans-Fintube Site.” The site, which is positioned just north of downtown, poses a particular set of planning and design challenges to the City of Tulsa. Mayor Taylor, who has taken a keen interest in the project, commented that, “The outstanding challenges posed in our ongoing efforts to address the complicated planning and design needs of the ‘Evans-Fintube Site’ provide a unique laboratory for experts and could be best addressed with the help of the MICD team.”

The Mayors’ Institute on City Design is a partnership program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Architectural Foundation, and the United States Conference of Mayors. Since 1986, the Mayors’ Institute has helped transform communities through design by preparing mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities. To date, more than 750 mayors and 550 design professionals have participated in the program.

For more information, contact the Mayors’ Institute on City Design at 202-463-1930 or go to www.micd.org.