One of the County’s goals is to create walkable places that enable social interaction and reflect community character; preserve and promote our cultural, historic, and rural resources to celebrate our heritage; and encourage new investment.

The Planning Department is exploring the use of placemaking strategies to highlight the diverse and distinct neighborhoods in the County and promote local arts and culture that define Choice Communities. With the assistance of the Better Block Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that specializes in reshaping and reactivating the built environment, the Planning Department will host placemaking events, focusing initially in three development centers designated by Plan 2035 - Suitland, Riverdale, and Largo. This pilot series prioritizes building partnerships with local community stakeholders, strengthening interagency collaboration, and learning from hands-on demonstrations. It is the goal that these efforts will play a key role in cultivating iconic destinations for people to live, work, play, and invest.

To learn more about Plan 2035, visit https://planpgc2035.org.

To learn more about the Better Block Foundation, visit www.betterblock.org.

Placemaking Suitland

On April 8–9, 2022, Prince George's County Planning Department, Better Block, and Creative Suitland hosted a community block party in the vast parking lot at 4719 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, Maryland. Together with community volunteers, vendors, artists, performers, and other county agencies, we activated the parking lot to demonstrate how creative placemaking can transform underutilized spaces into fun places for fellowship and artistic expression. View the Placemaking Suitland event video below!

Special thanks to the partners and vendors that helped make the event a success!

The Prince George’s Planning Department, Creative Suitland, and the Better Block Foundation hosted a virtual kickoff on Wednesday, January 19, 2022, to share details about the placemaking initiative and ways that participants can help bring the event to life! See the video of the virtual kickoff event below.

Placemaking Riverdale

Placemaking Riverdale was held on July 14 and 15, 2023, in the Plaza del Alamo parking lot at 5550 Kenilworth Avenue, Riverdale Park, Maryland. 

Placemaking Riverdale is another pilot project in the placemaking series organized by the Prince George’s County Planning Department in partnership with Better Block. The Planning Department is collaborating with Central Kenilworth Avenue Revitalization (CKAR) CDC to host a 2-day placemaking festival celebrating local arts and culture of the Greater Riverdale area.

The Planning Department, CKAR, and Better Block hosted a virtual kickoff on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, to share details about the placemaking initiative and invite participants to volunteer to help bring the event to life! If you want to volunteer, please email pgcplacemaking@ppd.mncppc.org.

View the Placemaking Riverdale Virtual Kick-Off Meeting

Placemaking Largo

The Placemaking Downtown Largo Festival was a full day of fun and artistic celebration of Largo’s vibrant community!  In partnership with Better Block, the Largo Town Center Association, Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation Department, Prince George's County Arts and Humanities Council, the Office of the County Executive, we transformed the parking lot of the Wayne K. Curry Administration Building into a vibrant gathering space for the community.  With creative designs from Better Block, we used bistro sets, picnic tables, yard games, shade umbrellas, and sculptural art to beautify the space and make it comfortable for neighbors to occupy.  Largo Town Center Association filled that space with local vendors, food trucks, farmers, and performers that kept the crowd entertained all day. The Arts and Humanities Council hosted a popup art gallery and wellness demonstrations.   The Department of Parks and Recreation brought the Skate Mobile and Arts on a Roll for fun and games! These key partnerships and engaged community stakeholders were vital to the success of this placemaking effort!

During the next months, the project team will work to compile key takeaways and lessons learned into a resource document to support future placemaking projects.  Staff is also evaluating short-term placemaking opportunities from recommendations in the Largo Town Center Placemaking, Branding, and Wayfinding Strategy.

Background

Downtown Largo is one of the three downtowns designated by the County’s General Plan, Plan 2035. The downtowns are areas best positioned to develop—in the near term—into vibrant, walkable, regional-serving centers; each will have a robust economic and employment base, a distinct sense of place and identity, a varied housing stock, a multimodal transportation network, and diverse, mixed-income communities. Through placemaking and collaborative engagements, we can support our diverse and distinct communities and create vibrant places for everyone to enjoy.  

Through Placemaking Largo, we will test the recommendations of the Downtown Largo Placemaking, Branding, and Wayfinding Strategy, which discusses engineering and artistic methods to enhance the sense of place in the Largo Town Center area. This strategy identifies locations for creative placemaking, one of which will be the location of the Placemaking Largo event