With the pandemic delayed, FSU students are creating a roadmap for the Providence neighborhood’s renaissance

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Masters students from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at FSU completed their work for one semester with much applause.

But the work for Tallahassee’s Providence district is far from over.

The President of the Providence Neighborhood Association, Walter McDonald, has been a long time coming.

“I think this project shed a lot of light in our neighborhood,” he said.

WCTV first reported in February 2020 on efforts to redesign the neighborhood on Lake Bradford Road. A brainstorming workshop promised action later in the year.

But then came a global pandemic.

“When the pandemic broke out, we just turned everything off, we did surveys, we turned everything off for a couple of months,” he said.

The pandemic indicated a need for action. McDonald urged the city to take responsibility.

“We just can’t stop because of the pandemic, we have to move it forward,” he said.

So the city gave the green light for this work by the FSU, which was presented on Monday evening in the RIDER laboratory of the Innovation Park. Tia Maxwell is co-lead of the group.

“There have been a lot of trouble adjusting to the idea of ​​full community engagement in general during a pandemic,” she said.

Nonetheless, the team knocked on every door in the nearly 700 household district. A third responded to the survey, citing top priorities such as affordable housing and public safety.

“I would describe this as a vibrant community with people who are genuinely interested in what happens next,” said Maxwell.

The team took an obsolete Neighborhood Renaissance plan from 2003 and revised it to introduce dozens of tasks for the future.

But McDonald said it will take the city and county to invest dollars in addition to those tasks to make tangible change.

“Let’s see how hammers and nails run, we see how wood is built, buildings are made,” he said. “You spend all the money on Gaines Street, but none of it comes south to Lake Bradford. And we’re south of Lake Bradford, and we need economic development on our side of the city. “

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