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From parking spot to pop-up park – One-day event challenges the use of B.R. public space

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that a rainy weather forecast has caused organizers to reschedule the PARK(ing) Day event to Tuesday, Sept. 24.

On Tuesday, a few parking spaces downtown and in Mid City will be missing—replaced with mini-parks, outdoor workspaces and neighborhood hangouts for the day.

The project, a local version of the annual worldwide event PARK(ing) Day, serves as an extension of the Better Block BR event that happened in April, demonstrating what Government Street would look like with bike paths, better crosswalks, curbside shops and landscaped sidewalks.

“This is just continuing that conversation on streets not being just for cars, but for streets being used more comprehensively,” says Haley Blakeman, director of implementation for Center for Planning Excellence, one of the organizers of the event. “It’s about creating places that contribute to the urban feel of the neighborhood.”

From 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, five parking spots downtown and one in Mid City will be converted to public space, each hosted by a different group. On North Fifth Street in front of the Main Street Market, as well as Laurel Street in front of Strands Café, BREC and CPEX will convert those spaces to outdoor decks with chairs and tables for people taking a lunch or coffee break. On Third Street behind the Shaw Center, one parking space will be converted to an outdoor workspace with tables and laptops. In front of Garden District Nursery and Smokin Aces on Government Street, the parking space will be converted to a park.

Downtown Development District is hosting a location on Third Street in front of Boudreaux and Thibodeaux’s that will serve as a preview of plans to improve and landscape Third Street. Davis Rhorer of DDD says it will demonstrate types of streetscape, sidewalk and lighting improvements that create active outdoor space for the arts and entertainment district.

Blakeman says that while the local PARK(ing) Day continues the momentum and interest generated by Better Block BR in developing more complete streets across the city, the emphasis on downtown is important. Curbside parking in front of some downtown buildings is only used sporadically throughout the week, she says, creating unused space that could be converted permanently to mini-parks or green space with beneficial storm drainage.

“I hope people will see the benefits of incorporating more green space downtown and the benefits of creating more uses for shared parking spaces,” she says.

Check out a map of the downtown locations below:

For more information on PARK(ing) Day and the full list of participating locations, click here.

Image at the top of the page is from Luis Cutto during a PARK(ing) Day event in front of the Democracy Center in Cambridge, Mass., last year.