PORTLAND, Maine — Southwest Airlines and the Project for Public Spaces announced Wednesday that Portland’s Congress Square was chosen as one of six places nationwide to benefit from $100,000 in revitalization grant money each.
Wednesday’s announcement represented the second annual wave of grants distributed through the airline’s “Heart of Community” program.
Bree LaCasse of Friends of Congress Square Park said in a Wednesday announcement that the funding will be used to develop a “clear vision” for the space as well as for physical amenities, such as “tables and chairs, movie screens and art and game kiosks.”
Public movie screens and game kiosks would be a significant turnaround for a public square that not long ago was a lightning rod for controversy in the city.
Once maligned as a dark hangout for drug dealers, Congress Square just two years ago was the spot where famed singer Elvis Costello’s production manager was mugged and sent to the hospital. With that reputation in mind, the City Council agreed to sell the 14,500-square-foot lot on the corner of Congress and High streets to private hotel developers.
But a grass-roots effort was mounted to block the deal, saying the square should be revived as a public space. Friends of Congress Square Park garnered voter approval for an ordinance effectively icing the proposed sale last June, and kept the square busy during the summer months with public World Cup soccer viewings, dance parties, free wireless Internet and a food truck.
With Wednesday’s grant money, the Friends group will look to take those efforts to the next level.
“The best way to build a sustainable world is by focusing on place,” said Fred Kent, founder and president of Project for Public Spaces, in a statement. “Placemaking is more than how we design public spaces — it is a means by which people are collectively and intentionally shaping their environment and building deep and lasting community ties.
“Placemaking turns our approaches to land-use, transportation, governance, and the environment upside-down by asking people what they fundamentally need in a public space and empowering them to be a part of the development process,” he continued.
Other locations to benefit from “Heart of Community” grants include Hemming Park in Jacksonville, Florida, and Strauss Park in St. Louis.
