Big Plans for Little Parks

By Ariel Ben-Amos and T. Andrew Simpson

Philadelphia's first parklet was installed in the summer of 2011 at the corner of 43rd and Baltimore in the University City District in West Philadelphia. Formed from on-street parking spaces, the parklet was enormously successful — despite being catty corner from Clark Park, which spans two city blocks.

Parklets often remain nameless, but they are as beloved and as much a part of the fabric of a neighborhood as any traditional park. They are becoming a popular form of public space, supported by small businesses but used by far more than just the businesses' patrons. Indeed, according to a 2015 UCD study, more than 30 percent of the parklet's users were not patrons of its adjacent cafe. More people were using the parklet to talk, read, write, or surf the web than eat or drink.

The minipark's popularity spurred the city to fund a portfolio of parklets and create legislation authorizing business groups, neighborhood civic associations, small businesses, and private citizens the right to build and maintain their own. By 2016, the parklet count in UCD alone grew to six.

The rest of the country discovered this new urban design tool around the same time. In 2010, there were only eight parklets in the U.S.; at the end of 2011, there were over 30; and by 2015, close to 190 parklets were in use across the country, averaging 31 new ones a year. The new spaces appeared in 43 cities, from Montpelier, Vermont, with its nearly 8,000 residents, to Los Angeles.

Studies have shown that parklets increase both pedestrian and retail activity, making them an increasingly common "tactical urbanist" intervention used to support commercial corridors across the U.S. — so much so that parklets have become part of national design guidance, appearing in the National Association of City Transportation Official's Urban Street Design Guide. As planners look to place parklets along neighborhood commercial corridors, it's important to understand where they are most likely to be successful.

Philadelphia's Chinatown parklet opened in 2013 and was the first in the neighborhood. Its location on 10th Street is close to the action — and a variety of bakeries and tea shops. Photo by Redfield Photography.

Understanding the parklet market

Determining the market for parklets is not simply a question of where to add pedestrian space, or where such interventions will have the biggest impact on pedestrian activity. Rather — perhaps not surprisingly — it is a question of where there is both political support and the capacity to develop.

In 2015, the authors of this article worked with a team that included Charlotte Castle of the city's office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, Cara Ferrentino (now program officer for public space with the William Penn Foundation), and Daniel Wolf (now a neighborhood planner in Cambridge, Massachusetts) to develop a study to analyze both national and local parklet markets. All of us had worked in developing, managing, and administering parklet programs in Philadelphia.

We wanted to understand successful parklets: What were the demographics of the communities and how did they compare with their respective cities? We also looked at what sort of partners were best to work with in the public and private sectors, in order to support the growth of parklets in underserved communities all across Philly.

The parklet markets in Philadelphia and nationally are affected by the administrative requirements cities build into their tactical urbanism-enabling programs (whether they simply permit parklet spaces or provide the funding), the level of local support, and the small-p politics of land use. Planners looking to establish their own parklet programs should pay attention to the differences between neighborhoods that host parklets and those that don't.

LOCAL SUPPORT

As demand for parklets grows, municipalities are responding by providing programmatic and administrative, technical, and legal requirements businesses or nonprofits must meet. In San Francisco, for instance, prospective parklet providers must work with three different departments and navigate a 15-step process.

In practical terms, a potential host's credibility generally rests on the enthusiasm of a surrounding community to write or sign letters and publicly agree to lose some on-street parking. In Philadelphia, parklet hosts must get the support of not only abutting property owners, but also the buy-in of 51 percent of residents and businesses along the block. In San Francisco, parklet proposals are sometimes debated in a public hearing — if there are objections.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Census data reveals that parklet host neighborhoods (as defined by census block group) are roughly as diverse in race and age as their host cities, and are — with the exception of San Francisco — about as wealthy. However, greater education achievement and housing tenure do make a difference. Neighborhoods with a third more bachelor degrees than the rest of their city are more likely to embrace a new parklet. Residents in parklet neighborhoods are far more likely to rent than own (76 to 52 percent, respectively), pay more in rent (around 13 percent more), and be part of a nonfamily household (to a significant degree). This suggests a strong relationship between parklets and neighborhoods that are millennial friendly or attract recent college grads.

That said, demographics are not destiny. One former Philadelphia parklet, which hosted movie nights, health workshops, and free fitness classes, was in the low-income, predominantly African American neighborhood of Logan, right in front of the local branch of the Free Library. And the city's newest parklet is in Tacony, a "middle neighborhood" that is neither booming nor impoverished.

DENSITY

This is the most consistent and striking difference between parklet host neighborhoods and their cities. Parklet neighborhoods are nearly four times denser — and are often notable for having a significant number of mixed use developments.

That is the case of all of Seattle's parklets, says Seth Geiser, Seattle DOT program and policy specialist. "Most are [located close to] a business frontage where there is ground-level retail and pedestrian activity. Seattle has numerous neighborhoods that have streets fitting this description, and we have seen parklets installed in 10 different neighborhoods."

TRANSPORTATION CHOICE

Residents of parklet neighborhoods are also multimodal. Fewer of them drive to work, and they are also twice as likely to take transit, twice as likely to bike, and three times as likely to walk. Shari Glickman, New York City DOT's senior manager for public space, says that all of their parklets — known locally as "Street Seats" — are in Manhattan and Brooklyn, neighborhoods that "have already jumped on that band wagon of 'who needs a parking space?'"

Glickman notes that in outer boroughs, there is a concern that parking will be lost.

FAILED PARKLETS

It was also instructive to look at the 10 percent of parklets that, for a number of reasons — be they site-specific construction concerns or loss of support — failed to last more than one year. They tended to be in less dense neighborhoods, with a higher portion of nonfamily households (more than 70 percent), an average salary $7,000 less than areas with successful parklets, and more car commuters. All of which suggests that areas willing to support parking loss for the creation of miniparks exist as some sort of Goldilocks, just-right neighborhood.

New Yorkers, Take a Seat

Working in partnership with New York City DOT's Street Seats program, students in the Design Build course of the School of Constructed Environments at The New School's Parsons School of Design designed this year's project at the corner of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue in front of the school.

The components were constructed at the school and installed on April 22, during the school's Earth Week event, and will be in place for six months. Watch the video at vimeo.com/220233015 to learn about the design process and construction. Photos courtesy Plantitcity.

WHEN THEY STARTED: Three Street Seats sites were installed as part of the 2011 pilot program.

HOW THEY WORK: Street Seats is a program launched by the New York City Department of Transportation to maximize public seating throughout the city. Any type of business or institution (such as a museum or community organization) that owns or operates the frontage at the ground floor of a building may be eligible to install and maintain a Street Seat.

All potential Street Seat sites are expected to be both safe and practical. DOT reviews all applications.

WHAT THEY PROVIDE: According to the DOT's website, "Street Seats are attractive installations that enhance neighborhood streets and provide an amenity to support walking and vibrant street life." All installations must include plantings that screen the seating area from traffic, but users must still be able to see the other side of the street. Designs must have a continuous open edge along the curb.

BAMBOO JUNGLE: See how New School students used New York's grid system as inspiration for their modular bamboo Street Seats installation — and how they put the whole thing together: vimeo.com/220233015.

Parklets, partners, and placement

Understanding the market for parklets is only half the story. It also pays to recognize who will make them work — the organizations most likely to enable, operate, and sponsor them.

PUBLIC PARTNERS

Understanding your local agencies' approach to developing these programs is vital. Most cities start with pilot projects, although by 2015, only 10 (out of 42) cities had made those pilots permanent.

Given the resources required to develop a program, from the development of legal frameworks to the devotion of staff time, it's not a surprise that so many cities continue to run their parklets programs as pilots, which gives them significant flexibility and less administrative burden.

New York, Philadelphia, and Portland, Oregon, took the leap and developed formal programs, a process which took up to three years. The effort often involves a DOT finding other municipal government partners with a longstanding history of interacting with small businesses to help them devise and regulate the relationship between the parklet operator and the city. Public partners can also help develop design guidance and grant programs to build and maintain the parklets.

PRIVATE PARTNERS

Our research found that a significant majority of parklets were successfully deployed next to establishments that sell food or drinks. It's safe to say that the restaurant or other host business has the capacity and vested interest in cleaning, sweeping, and maintaining the space.

NONPROFIT PARTNERS

Nationally, just a quarter of parklets were deployed in conjunction with a local nonprofit, but many cities report that it's a valuable collaboration. In Seattle, notes Geiser, nonprofits "support parklets in three ways: sponsorships, fundraising, and outreach. For parklets hosted by community organizations or small-scale businesses, [such] outside support has been essential for gathering the resources needed to build and maintain a parklet."

The Frank Shuman Solar Art Parklet in the Tacony neighborhood of Philadelphia celebrates the area's history and its notable residents — including Shuman himself, an early 20th century inventor who was a solar energy pioneer. It takes up two parking spaces in front of the Library Arts Building. Photo by Steve Weinik.

Focus on Philadelphia

Philadelphia is an outlier in regards to partnering with nonprofits. There, three-quarters of all parklets were launched with support from NGOs, and that relationship is particularly helpful for setting up parklets in nontraditional locations, like dense neighborhoods with little access to park space, or along commercial corridors not traditionally associated with placemaking and tactical urbanism.

"The city's newest parklet — and the first parklet in the city's [low density, auto-oriented] Northeast region — demonstrates the creative solutions for parklets" enabled by such public and nonprofit partnerships, notes Charlotte Castle, the transportation systems program planner for the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems.

That space, the Frank Shuman Solar Art Parklet, is hosted by Mural Arts Philadelphia. It commemorates a famous inventor, engineer, and solar energy pioneer from the neighborhood. Despite its nontraditional locale, it's popular in part due to its adjacency to the Tacony Library & Arts Building, a community hub that hosts a temporary neighborhood library branch, as well as artist studio space, arts events and workshops, and a computer lab with free wifi. "The parklet serves as an extension of the LAB, providing public space to socialize and serving as a temporary gallery," says Castle.

However, choosing the right nonprofit partner requires careful consideration. We took a close look at Philadelphia's parklets and the nonprofit sponsors associated with them, and compared them to a control population. We used publicly available tax data and sent surveys to businesses and nonprofits (including community development corporations, business and neighborhood improvement districts, and special services districts) with parklets in their service areas, as well as a control group of nonprofit partners and parklet operators with similar service boundaries but no parklet.

The key findings were that NGOs that sponsored parklets tended to have nearly twice as many employees (and dedicated more of those employees' time and salaries to parklets programs) as those that did not, and they also brought in nearly five times as much in revenue, in the form of grants, donations, or program revenue. Parklet sponsors reported spending close to 15 times more on placemaking activities than their control NGOs and nearly six times as much on economic development activities, indicating that nonprofits that want to support parklets must have the wherewithal to do so.

Moving forward

Welcome to the Parklet, the season opener event on April 20, featured a solar art workshop and live music. Local musicians will play at Live from the Parklet evenings through the end of July. Photo by Maria Möller, courtesy Mural Arts Philadelphia.

Strong parklet programs are marked by a commitment to collaborate with community partners, improve systems, and expand opportunities for investment. The process takes nurturing, with significant outreach to the business and nonprofit community. In Seattle, that effort allowed the city to tailor its operating rules to better support small businesses, streamline its review process, and provide clearer information to potential applicants, Geisner notes.

Shari Glickman says it was important for NYC DOT to "make it easy" to deploy a Street Seat. "We wanted to eliminate [barriers] right off the bat. We wanted to make it easy and fun to create public space for the neighborhood, and it worked," Glickman says. "The biggest hurdle is finding someone to maintain [the Street Seat]."

Getting partners on board with parklets takes special care in outlying neighborhoods with competing priorities, Glickman says. "[The CDCs] are working on other things and [do not want to get the] community board upset," she says. That's why the NYC DOT is looking to develop a new model — the "Traveling Street Seat" — that allows partners to test the capacity of a location. Seattle and Portland are also developing strategies to reach out to more traditionally underserved communities.

Leah Treat, director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, says that parklets are becoming destinations. "People will say, 'Meet me on Mississippi Avenue, over by where they have the tables in the parking space.'"

Ariel Ben-Amos is a city planner with the Philadelphia Water Department, and T. Andrew Simpson is a candidate for a master of city planning degree at the University of Pennsylvania. They worked with Charlotte Castle, transportation systems program planner for Philadelphia's Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems; Cara Ferrentino, program officer for Public Space with the William Penn Foundation, and Daniel Wolf, a neighborhood planner in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to develop the study upon which this article is based.