Vitality at the River’s Edge | Necessary Work in the River Arts District RiverLink is returning to its founding roots, thanks to a bold and visionary grant opportunity supporting Asheville’s River Arts District Recovery: At the Intersection of Resilience + Creativity. RiverLink, in partnership with Unified RAD, is now laying the groundwork to develop and execute a professionally-facilitated, artist-centered, resiliency-focused charrette process (a carefully structured series of workshops with experts invited to generate and refine design ideas and solutions) including all key River Arts District stakeholders. These groups include the RAD artists, businesses, property owners, residents, and parks + recreation representatives all in partnership with the City of Asheville, Buncombe County, Explore Asheville and the Chamber of Commerce. Intended outcomes include: creating a guiding vision document, centered around a thriving arts community, to serve as the “North star” for future flood-resilient development in the RAD at the individual, community and district level; plus identification of new, large-scale collaborative project(s) to pursue immediate recovery funding, such as the City of Asheville’s Community Development Block Grant-DR to help the RAD build back utilizing floodplain innovations for greater resilience. A steering committee representing the stakeholder groups above will begin interviewing charrette firm candidates and domain experts who will help guide and inform the full group of stakeholders participating in the charrette process. We look forward to starting the process this Spring, convening stakeholders this Summer, and delivering results this Fall. |
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