barham farmway + greenway

For years, the residents of Morningside have endured illegal dumping and blight on Barham Street. The narrow single-sided residential street also experienced significant amounts of demolitions, leaving it primarily vacant and overgrown.

livingLAB worked with U-Snap-Bac and stakeholders to identify key goals of developing an asset for community use; providing community benefits such as access to fresh foods, vocational training, youth engagement; provide a development structure that is self-sustaining; and increasing the value of existing residential real estate.

The plan proposes cleaning up the illegal dumping; acquiring land-banked parcels and available private parcels; closing Barham to vehicle traffic and narrowing it to a public walkway; activating adjacent vacant property by making infrastructure improvements that will attract and support growers/green venture businesses with lease-to-own arrangements to, over time, transition property to private ownership.

The plan received funding from the Kresge Foundation for further evolution toward construction in Spring 2017. Pre-Construction is expected to conclude in 2018 with a project ribbon-cutting in 2019.

• Client: U-Snap-Bac
• Location: Morningside Neighborhood, Detroit