“Good design is listening and creating something where people say: ‘Oh, you did what I wanted,’” said Steve Rasmussen Cancian, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University.
To that end, some of his students hosted two community workshops to solicit ideas for a master plan for Benbow Park in East Greensboro.
And, if you listen to neighborhood residents attending the sessions, it appears a good design is on the horizon.
“I love the plans,” said Katrina Peoples, a second-generation Benbow Park resident who attended both meetings at Kindred Hospital. “I think they took a lot of our feedback and added those things.”
The students, all seniors, first met with residents in early October. They gave them maps of the 8.7-acre park, as well as the adjoining, vacant city land, and asked the residents mark up the maps with elements they would like to see there.
The six Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Design students then took those ideas and incorporated them into four proposed master plans for residents to review at a Nov. 21 meeting.
“Our goal was to create a master plan for renovating Benbow park that reflects the community needs, desires and dreams,” student Ronald Okanume said. After presenting the designs at the second meeting, the students asked residents — who worked in groups of two or three people — to choose one design and make the changes they would like to see.
Among the features residents favored were greater accessibility — especially for older residents, more seating and picnic areas, raised beds for growing flowers or vegetables, sensory activities for children with special needs, restrooms and a dog park. Also high on their list: markers to honor the great athletes who have played at the park, such as NBA Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo, who practiced there as a child. The area recently was entered into the National Register of Historic Places and is the first historically Black neighborhood in Greensboro to gain this recognition, according to the city.
“This process has been incredibly motivating to the students because they’re seeing in real time the response to their work,” Rasmussen Cancian said. “We have mostly return people coming to the second workshop, which is a great sign that people actually liked the first one and wanted to come back. And, importantly, then they can then see what they did reflected in the students’ plans.”
Overall, the residents chose student Wilson Coles' plan with modifications, he added.
Greensboro Councilwoman Sharon Hightower and city parks planner Erin Kennedy attended the November meeting and praised the student’s efforts.
“I’m excited to see what the students come up with,” Kennedy said. “The neighborhood and Steve have really done the heavy lifting in this partnership, and we just get to be a fun part of it.”
Rasmussen Cancian said he hopes one or two of the students will get an internship this spring to work with the city in the coming months.
“Our key next step is to work with each city regulator — parks, water, arborist, transportation — to get approval for the plan the community selected,” he said.
The stream that runs through the park, along with the fact that part of the park is in a floodway, means special rules will apply. “You can’t put anything that will impede the flow of water, so you kind of have to stay at the same grade,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy also said the city will probably take the students’ final proposal and solicit wider community engagement. If a plan with cost estimates is adopted, the city will then search for grants to pay for the project, she said.
Though the community meetings focused on the park, they also sparked a connection between the residents and the students.
“I get misty-eyes when I see young people do what you all do,” said Gene Banks, a former NBA player and coach who played basketball at the park in East Greensboro in his college days. “You’re going to be the future for the east side.”
