A parklet in Richmond by Venture Richmond used with permission.

Normally a nine-by-18-foot slab of asphalt doesn’t generate headlines, but Richmond’s latest urbanist darling—an impromptu parklet at the Science Museum—generated a lot of buzz, and showed how even a humble parking spot can get a second lease on life.

Cities across the world, including in the Washington and Baltimore regions, will temporarily turn parking spaces into parklets this Friday for the annual Park(ing) Day. While in past years Richmond sported just one Park(ing) Day parklet, this year it will have 20, and organizers hope some will become permanent.

One of the perks of employee of the month is a parking space up front.



Me, a member of @TheWarOnCars: pic.twitter.com/gfcDLn0DD5 — Mark (@Mark_RVA87) August 28, 2019

The goal of Park(ing) Day is to help people rethink how we use space in cities by transforming parking spots into small parks for a day. It first started in San Francisco in 2005 to provide a visual for how much space we spend on car storage, and to push for more green space in urban areas. Today places across the world participate, including local jurisdictions like DC, Montgomery County, Arlington County, and Baltimore. More keep joining the movement: for example, Fairfax City is hosting for the first time this year.

With a surplus of over 7,000 unnecessary parking spaces in Richmond’s downtown alone, one would think that the city would be ripe for a parklet on every block. Yet despite an official permitting process which has been in place for over three years, Virginia’s capital doesn’t have a single parklet to its name.

Park(ing) Day hasn’t been a big deal in Richmond—until now

Park(ing) Day first came to Virginia’s capital 15 years ago. Although the grassroots nature of the festivities are part of its charm, last year’s celebrations saw just one parklet pulled together by the City of Richmond. That’s why this year, Venture Richmond—the nonprofit wing of the downtown business improvement district—took the lead.

“We see Park(ing) Day 2019 as part of our mission to activate downtown streets and an opportunity to raise awareness around Richmond’s parklet program. What we’ll see on Friday [September 20] are really fun, creative, and innovative expressions of how we can use public space besides parking cars there,” said Max Hepp-Buchanan, Venture’s first-ever Director of Riverfront & Downtown Placemaking.

Since May, Hepp-Buchanan has been working with Placemaking Intern Nicole Mueller to encourage as many local businesses, nonprofits, and artist groups as possible to sponsor a parklet. The two reached out to over 30 downtown-based firms and collectives specializing in design and architecture in the hopes they would have both the interest and resources to conjure up a parklet.

Here's where Richmond's Park(ing) Day parklets will go.

“Parking day is open to the entire city. It’s an open-source initiative. At Venture Richmond, we’re focused on our mission area, but we want to promote all participating parklets,” said Hepp-Buchanan.

The finalized list of 20 Park(ing) Day locations skews heavily towards the city center. Nonetheless, there are several notable outliers who plan to host a parklet Friday, including the largely residential Fan district; Scott’s Addition, a quickly-growing industrial area with lots of breweries; and the resurging Brookland Park Boulevard.

There was a parklet planned for Southside on Hull Street as well, but the city refused to allow one there due to the dangerous speed of traffic along the corridor. When plans to move the parklet to a side street were blocked by ongoing construction, the Southside parklet was shelved.

The emphasis on downtown and the riverfront makes sense considering Venture’s focus, but next year Hepp-Buchanan plans to start outreach far in advance in the hopes of placing parklets in neighborhoods across the city.

Image by Venture Richmond used with permission.

Why not throw in some cash and competition?

Another way Venture Richmond hopes to convince people to build parklets? Competition, and cold hard cash.

Sponsors interested in making their installation permanent will be evaluated and scored by a panel of judges, and the winner will recieve $5,000 and Venture Richmond’s support in helping it come to fruition. They’re hoping this year’s publicity and prestige around the winning parklet could encourage more groups across the city to join in.

“It’s not that the current parklet permitting process is broken, it’s just that not a lot of people know about it and there’s no incentive to do it besides the altruistic creation of public space,” Hepp-Buchanan said.

Hopefully these efforts are successful, because the existence of parklets in Richmond shouldn’t rest on the shoulders of one employee of the month.