Students in the Urban Studies 400 Senior Professional Seminar course led by Asst. Professor Joanna Lucio at ASU School of Public Affairs have been focused on exploring key questions associated with the BATA-PHX project.  On Thursday, May 6th, from 6:30pm to 8pm the students will presenting their analysis and conclusions.  Please join us!  Anyone interested is welcome.

WHEN: Thursday, May 6, 2010 — 6:00-6:30pm: conversation and light refreshments; 6:30-8:00pm: URB 400 student presentations and discussion

WHERE: fractal.  fractal is located in the heart of the Grand Avenue Arts District of Downtown Phoenix, in the Bragg’s Pie Factory building at 1301 NW. Grand Avenue, Suite 7 (at the intersection of Grand Ave., 13th Ave. and W. McKinley St. — entrance off McKinley).  (Thank you, thank you, thank you to the team at fractal for hosting us!)

We hope to see you on Thursday!

Here are some ways to help us:

• Provide expertise. If you know answers to any of the questions we ask on the main page, please let us know!

• Do general research. All of us on the core team have a lot to learn about brownfield remediation and arts-focused redevelopment. We’d welcome a “lit review” or other more informal set of references or links to relevant articles, for example.  If you write up a mini-white paper on any relevant topic, we can publish it here.  We can also, e.g., do informal “brownbags” where you report out your research to other interested team members.

• Map suspected brownfields. Have mad detective skills? Like walking around downtown? Google Maps power user? Help us create a map of suspected brownfields in a particular area, such as along Grand or off Lincoln.

• Document the needs of particular arts organizations. Interview artists and representatives of organizations that would be interested in free or subsidized space, and document their particular needs.

• Connect us with relevant experts and stakeholders. We have a preliminary, very incomplete list of experts and stakeholders. Please introduce us to anyone we’re missing.

• Improve our website. Help us build out this site, for example by creating more links to other resources around the web.

• Write a grant application. We know of some grant opportunities that could fund our efforts.  We’d welcome someone picking up the laboring oar to write up a grant application.

• Provide some seed funding. We’d welcome some funding that could be used towards a professional grant writer and/or a graduate student intern.

• ??? Tell us how you can help!

We’re interested in creating a list of people who either might be able to provide some expert input into our project, or who are otherwise stakeholders we should engage.  The list below is woefully incomplete.  Please let us know who else try to connect with.  If you are on the list below and we haven’t communicated with you yet, apologies — we plan to!

# Rosanne Albright, City of Phoenix Brownfields Coordinator

# Arcelious Stephens, Department of Environmental Quality, State of Arizona

# Bob Booker, Arizona Commission on the Arts

# Brenda Sperduti, Arizona Citizens for the Arts

# Cyd West, Metro Phoenix Partnership for Arts and Culture

# Greg Esser, Roosevelt Row CDC (also involved in the City of Phoenix Arts/Culture/Small Business Overlay and Artist Storefront Program)

# Sloane McFarland, ArtLink

# Ed Lebow, Office of Arts and Culture, City of Phoenix

# Representative from Grand Avenue Merchants Association

# Joe Murphy, Office of Councilmember Michael Nowakowski, City of Phoenix

# Teresa Brice, LISC

# Russ Haan, After Hours Creative

Some articles of interest:

Rahway hopes brownfields money will kickstart new arts development | Local New Jersey

News – - NJ.comN.C. Arts Council – Economic Stimulus: Brownfields/Land

RevitalizationParks for People, expireBrownfields to Art Parks: The Trust for Public

LandSculpting a park out of a brownfield

Some key resources:

City of Phoenix: http://phoenix.gov/brownfld/brownfld.html

ADEQ: http://www.azdeq.gov/environ/waste/cleanup/brownfields.html

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot.htm

CPEO: http://www.cpeo.org/brownfields/brown.html

Some models for us to explore:

• Artspace: http://www.artspace.org/

• Artspace Buffalo: http://www.artspacebuffalo.org/ (includes links to other Artspace sites)

• Artspace Utah: http://www.artspaceutah.org

• ArtHouse: http://www.arthouseca.org/

• Curly School Artisan Lofts (Ajo, AZ): http://www.curleyschool.com/

• Not a Cornfield: http://www.notacornfield.info <– Brad’s favorite!

• Toronto Artscape: http://www.torontoartscape.on.ca/

• Various Seattle projects: http://www.artsresourcenetwork.net/resources_issues/artisthousing/livework.asp