MPC's Kara Riggio talks about the Milwaukee Avenue Green Development Corridor project.
Last Friday, Kara Riggio and I headed out to Logan Square’s Goethe School (pronounced “Gurta,” or “Gothee,” or “Gaythee,” or however you like) to present MPC’s work with the Milwaukee Avenue Green Development Corridor. The organization Friends of Goethe School, which received an Illinois Green Infrastructure Grant (IGIG) separate from the $200,000 IGIG allocation MPC is helping distribute in the corridor, has a rather extensive plan in place for updating their schoolyard with green infrastructure measures, such as creating native habitats, and managing stormwater (see rendering, below). They invited us to share with them how our projects complement each other.
The Goethe School siteplan.
Siteplan courtesy of Wolff Landscape Architecture
For one thing, the Goethe School lies directly adjacent to the Milwaukee Avenue corridor, where MPC is working to identify and award IGIG grants to residents, businesses, and organizations that want to make stormwater mitigation improvements, such as rain gardens, permeable pavers, or green roofs. So far we’ve awarded six grants, and hope to award the remainder of our funds this spring. Our workshop on March 30 at the Comfort Station in Logan Square will help residents through the grant application process, and get them well on their way to preventing flooding in their neighborhood.
The similarities in projects aren’t only geographical. The Goethe School’s goals and our goals for the Milwaukee Avenue corridor align perfectly: Goethe School wants to reduce flooding in their schoolyard and improve the usability and aesthetic appeal of the area; we at MPC want to measure how effective clustered stormwater mitigation upgrades on private property are to ease flooding in Logan Square.
All in all, it was an informative morning for everyone, including us. While we were already familiar with the Goethe School project, it was heartening to see the community’s dedication to projects like our own that will hopefully relieve the stress on Logan Square’s waterworks. We look forward to better quantifying and qualifying the benefits of the Goethe School project, and our own.
To apply for a stormwater management grant, attend our next public workshop, on Saturday, March 30, at 11 a.m. at the Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Logan Square.