1pm Eastern (10am Pacific, 2pm Atlantic)

Midtown Detroit, Inc. (MDI) is a non-profit planning and development agency charged with revitalization of Detroit's Woodward Corridor. MDI is involved in over 30 collaborative projects and programs that address the challenges and opportunities of the greater Midtown Detroit community.

Over the last decade, MDI and its predecessor organization, the University Cultural Center Association, have raised $56 million for a variety of initiatives including the Midtown Greenway Loop, restoration and conversion of six historic homes into a boutique hotel, the Woodward Avenue Streetscape Enhancement project, the creation of the Sugar Hill Arts District, the construction of two community gardens and a Green Alley, the renovation of many commercial facades throughout the district, and a matching grants security enhancement program for property and business owners.

This webinar will explore how MDI works as an effective non-profit shaping the revitalization of Midtown Detroit and how its successful initiatives are leveraging creative placemaking practice at different scales to achieve positive returns across the district.

You Will Learn

• How creative placemaking is informing and shaping Detroit’s revitalization
• How MDI’s different projects have succeeded and why
• How Midtown Detroit makes decisions in a context of seemingly endless opportunities
• Midtown Detroit’s key tools and strategies in project and community development
• Building mixed-income housing, commercial, and arts-related uses on vacant properties; transforming underutilized/unsafe spaces into community assets
• How MDI builds stakeholder confidence and partnerships in creative placemaking projects that achieve multiple bottom lines

Register for The Revitalization of Detroit and the Non-Profit that Could

About the Speakers

Susan T. Mosey has been the Executive Director of Midtown Detroit, Inc. (MDI) in Detroit, Michigan for twenty seven years. This non-profit organization is responsible for community development, marketing, real estate, small business development and arts programming within Detroit’s University Cultural Center and New Center districts – an area now known as Midtown. MDI also manages public space maintenance and security initiatives for the district. Projects that have been undertaken by the organization under her direction include public improvements such as new streetscapes and park development, greenway planning and construction, and residential and commercial real estate development and management. MDI’s newest initiative is the Live Midtown Residential Incentive Program that encourages employees of the anchors to move to Midtown. The organization also produces a number of signature arts events, including Art X Detroit, DLECTRICITY and Noel Night.

Pru Robey is a passionate advocate for the transformative impact the arts and culture have on the lives of individuals and communities. Throughout her career, the development of innovative, multi-sector approaches to support cultural sector development, creative economy activation and sustainable urban regeneration has been a centerpiece of her work. Pru has over 30 years of experience as a consultant, researcher, manager, promoter and funder in the arts, culture and creative industries in Canada and the UK. As Vice President and Creative Placemaking Lab Director at Toronto-based Artscape, Pru takes the lead in new project research and development and on major research initiatives; directs a suite of programs and services designed to build the capacity of communities internationally to undertake creative placemaking; and advises communities internationally on strategies to support city-building through the arts. She designed and teaches Canada’s only undergraduate course in Creative Placemaking for the University of British Columbia and is a member of the Placemaking Leadership Council.

SOURCE: Artscape