Latest News

11th Street Bridge Parks’ Scott Kratz on Community Engagement with Public Projects

October 27, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

One of these projects, within the network of the highly successful High Line project in New York, is the 11th Street Bridge Park in DC. Scott Kratz, Director of Building Bridges Across the River, spoke about the project on a panel during Bloomberg’s CityLab conference. In his comments, excerpted here, Kratz addresses the importance of community and local engagement when it comes to altering the built environment, as well as the overall mission of Washington DC’s bridge reuse project. – The Planning Report

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Learning from 11th Street Bridge Park’s Affordable Housing Strategies

October 25, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

The Bridge Park has helped found job programs that have already placed over 150 residents in construction jobs, who will be the first to actually build the park. It has also supported people’s training on culinary skills and technical assistance to black owned businesses and provided a total of over three million dollars in grants and loans to help prepare their businesses well in advance before the park opens… – The Urban Activist

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River East Design Center created The Bridge Spot, a small business kiosk

October 12, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

Community Forklift’s Community Building Blocks (CBB) program provided free paint from our reuse warehouse to aid in the construction of The Bridge Spot mobile kiosk. The kiosk is designed to support a group of small businesses from east of the Anacostia River, allowing them to travel around the city and vend at festivals and markets. – Community Forklift

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Data Sharing Can Better Allow Partner Networks to Meet Equity Goals

September 20, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

From landscape design to economic development, equitable public space and infrastructure-reuse projects must interact with many different domains to fulfill their missions. But this web of partnerships and stakeholders also necessitates growing data collection and analysis responsibilities to measure performance and meet equity goals. – Urban Institute

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Building Equitable Communities: Northwest Arkansas and the Future of Community Land Trusts

August 17, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

““We need to be willing to remold our plans based on feedback and truly listen to the needs and desires of the community we’re serving.” – Scott Kratz” – I Am Northwest Arkansas

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Hundreds of Young People, Adults Pour Their Hearts Out at Youth Summit

August 15, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

Hundreds of young people and adults converged on THEARC in Southeast D.C. on Sunday to reflect on the current state of affairs in the District and talk about what they believe to be solutions to the violence that has rocked their communities over the past several years. – The Washington Informer

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11th Street Bridge Park relaunches its Anacostia small business preservation program

August 9, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

Select businesses will get pro bono assistance from … – Washington Business Journal

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Improving Access for Small Businesses East of the River

July 24, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

A small business kiosk is providing added visibility to Black-owned startups from east of the Anacostia River across Washington, D.C., as it hits the road for the very first time this summer.
Known as The Bridge Spot, this distinctive two-tone green mobile kiosk aims to provide visibility and improve marketing and sales for businesses in Wards 7 and 8, with an eye toward helping entrepreneurs build generational wealth. For Angela Chester-Johnson, Founder of the tea, spice and sauce shop Plum Good, The Bridge Spot also offers an opportunity to promote health and well-being across the District and beyond. – Capital One

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11th Street Bridge Park set to break ground in late 2023, video nominated for an Emmy Award

July 13, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

The $92 million project, scheduled for completion by early 2026, will be the first elevated park in the nation’s capital – literally a park that is also a bridge. Stretching the length of about three football fields across the Anacostia River, the 11th Street Bridge Park will connect the city’s Navy Yard with the Anacostia neighborhoods in Southeast D.C., particularly the historically disenfranchised neighborhoods of Anacostia, Fairlawn and Barry Farm east of the river. – The Kresge Foundation

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First, save what you have, community housing panel tells Northwest Arkansas group

June 22, 2023, 11th Street Bridge Park

The bridge park — an elevated park built on the piers of a bridge — grew out of a decade-old effort led by residents of that community to preserve their neighborhood. Other panelists were: Scott Kratz, senior vice president of the nonprofit company Building Bridges Across the River, and Vaughn Perry, director of the Skyland Workforce Center in the Anacostia community. – Arkansas Democrat Gazette

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