You are invited to join other community leaders at a special meeting about several Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) projects that focus on long-term park planning. These city-wide initiatives include Closing the Gap: Investing in Our Neighborhood Parks, RecQuest and Service Area Master Plans.
Thu., May 28 11 am – noon MPRB Headquarters, 2117 West River Road, Minneapolis
Or
Mon., June 1 6-7:30 pm MPRB Headquarters, 2117 West River Road, Minneapolis
Each meeting will give a brief overview of each initiative and provide you with information about how community engagement for each project will be combined as often as possible.
Closing the Gap: Investing in our Neighborhood Parks shares information about the current condition of our neighborhood parks. After more than a decade of deferring maintenance to meet budget shortfalls, many of Minneapolis’ 157 neighborhoods parks are in trouble. Neighborhood parks have the greatest number of physical assets (such as wading pools, playgrounds, roofs and parking lots) that require greater resources to operate, maintain and replace. Yet, since 2000, the funds available to care for these community hubs have been significantly less than the amount needed. As a result, the funding gap for neighborhood parks has grown to more than $110 million and if not addressed, will grow an additional $46 million by 2020. Note: Meetings for Closing the Gap will begin in North Minneapolis in June.
RecQuest is the MPRB’s in-depth assessment of its 49 community recreation centers designed to help guide recreation center investments for the next 25-30 years. RecQuest will not only review the physical spaces within the recreation centers themselves, but also the programs, services and activities the centers currently provide to assess if they are meeting the community’s needs. RecQuest will also help identify any areas of Minneapolis where programming is not currently offered but needed.
Service Area Master Plans take a complete look at all outdoor park assets within the service areas of Minneapolis (Downtown, North, Northeast/Southeast, South, Southwest). Using community input, master plans set a vision for operations, management, and improvements; create improvement plans for each neighborhood park, set priorities and estimate budgets. Currently, Service Area Master Plans are underway for the Downtown and South Service Areas. Over the next five years, Service Area Master Plans will be prepared for the Southwest, North, and Northeast/Southeast Service Areas.
We hope you can join us to learn more about these exciting projects and begin sharing the details with your own community! Please RSVP to ewolfe@minneapolisparks.org by Tuesday, May 26. Should you require a meeting modification in order to fully participate, please let me know in advance of the event.
