“#1 Community Development Project in Nation”

VOTED “#1 MOST OUTSTANDING” BY THE National Development Council (NDC) Academy, Washington, DC

SHREVEPORT COMMON is a historic, long-blighted nine-block area located at the eastern edge of Shreveport’s oldest neighborhood, Ledbetter Heights now a HUD Choice neighborhood, and the western edge of downtown Shreveport, Louisiana. Over 50 public/private partners are transforming the area following a year-long Creative Placemaking Vision Planning process. To date, public and private stakeholders have invested, to date, over $56,000,000 of a $100,000,000 Portfolio of community-changing Projects including historic preservation, saving and re-purposing endangered buildings and unused parcels to create mixed rate - mixed use spaces for artist/creatives live/work, market places and makerspaces, unique public art, programming and new community greenspaces.

Implementation continues based on the promise of the Shreveport Common Vision Plan and the community’s tenets for the UNCOMMON Community; that the transformation will be built on the Authenticity of the area, Creativity, Sustainability and for Community with no displacement of the current neighbors; instead keeping the neighbors integral to the revitalization.

“Shreveport Common has laid the foundation to become one of the leading examples of Creative Placemaking in the country...”

— MIT DEPT OF URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING’S 'PLACES IN THE MAKING' (2013)

Shreveport Common began in 2012 with a $150,000 National Endowment for the Arts, Mayor’s Institute of City Design grant for a year-long community Vision Planning Process led by the City of Shreveport and the Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) after a fire destroyed the Arts Council’s home in 2009. In 2013, the arts council moved into the 10-year unoccupied (c) 1922 Central Fire Station, now the Central ARTSTATION with over 65% space devoted to Artist Resource Center, multi-use/black-box style Engine Room, emerging artist gallery, arts entrepreneur training center and community space. The $5.7M project, funded mostly through private donations, marked the first capital improvement in the area in over 50 years. Through the committed efforts of SRAC, City of Shreveport, property owners, neighbors and Shreveport Common, Inc. 501-C-3 nonprofit organization, Shreveport Common is one of the nation's premier Creative Placemaking projects.

AWARDS & ACCOLADES _________________________________________________________________

• Named the 2023 Phoenix Award Winner, by the Society of American Travel Writers, for exemplary efforts at cultural, historic and beautification revitalization (2023)

• Voted the #1 Outstanding Community Development Project in the Nation by the National Development Council’s 500 member Academy, Washington, DC (2015-16)

• Studied and Featured by Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Leader in Creative Placemaking, MIT, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, whitepaper Places in the Making (2016)

• Project of the Year by the American Planning Assoc. Louisiana, for the TMG Real Estate Market Demand Study (2017)

• Named “Outstanding Cultural District of the Year” by Louisiana Dept. of Culture and Tourism (2015)

• Great Places in Louisiana Honorable Mention, Louisiana Center for Planning Excellence & AARP

SHREVEPORT COMMON IN 5 MIN. VIDEO - DRAFT VERSION

SHREVEPORT COMMON ANIMATED TIMELINE OF IMPROVEMENTS

The 9 Block Area of Shreveport Common