Encompassing one city block in downtown Meadville, The Greenspace is an “outdoor room” featuring an ADA walkway over Mill Run, solar powered umbrella tables, benches, rain gardens, and a performance stage for community events. Three constructed relief murals on adjacent building walls frame the site while addressing slum and blight. Arts, culture, and wellness events bring clients from The Arc and the neurotypical community together for shared activities. Site construction was completed in August 2023 with support from the PA Council on the Arts’ Creative Communities Initiative and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, private donors and hundreds of community volunteers. To learn more visit The Arc’s project website. To learn about all of the murals and to see photos of them click here. For a complete listing of events and arts-engagement visit this link. Our project timeline, milestones, and development history can be found here.
Bloom Where You’re Planted, a constructed relief mural, was completed in September 2020, and is the first mural to “frame” the site. A collaboration with the Crawford County Coalition on Housing Needs, the mural was fabricated from max-metal, a polycarbonate sheet surrounded by aluminum. Over 45 sections were laser jet cut and attached to the building wall using more than 600 tap-cons. Following completion, the community was invited to help ‘name’ the mural. Over a hundred people participated in this event.
