#WhatifRedding Could Win a Caltrans Grant to Build a Park Downtown?

Today, The McConnell Foundation and The City of Redding teamed up to submit a grant application to Caltrans, seeking support for a downtown park to be located just south of the Shasta College Health Sciences building.

Caltrans HQ staff say that more than 300 communities statewide attended the informational sessions to try to bring these funds home to the places where they live. The competition will surely be stiff, and we will keep our fingers crossed for when they make the announcements in March.

If we were to be successful of attaining a Clean California Local Grant Program award, we could look back on the picture as “the before” and envision the following features as “the after”:

“The Infrastructure Project (adjacent to Shasta Community College in downtown Redding) converts a sterile parking lot into a welcoming, green 16,000 SF Urban Park, and turns 500 feet of the adjacent alley (between Yuba and Tehama Streets) into an inviting Lighted Pedestrian Path. Distinctive features (artful color fog feature, sound swings, and a multi-purpose art pavilion) leverage the site’s location within the California Arts Council-designated Redding Cultural District. The Non-Infrastructure Project includes an Adopt-A-Block Program, a ribbon cutting ceremony, a litter abatement social media campaign, and 6 months of educational arts & culture programming. Additionally, the Project leverages $78K of Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities bike/walk funding programmed within the 1/4 mile Project Buffer Area. All this, in a location close to multiple affordable housing developments, improving access to Life Destinations such as jobs, transit, educational opportunity and medical care.”

The Before: