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What kind of plaza do we want to see in Luverne?

Subhead
Community input sought at second planning meeting March 25
Lead Summary
By
Lori Sorenson

Community members are encouraged to attend next week’s planning meeting for a plaza in downtown Luverne.
It’s at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 25, in Grand Prairie Events where refreshments will be served.
Luverne Initiatives for Tomorrow (L.I.F.T.), Luverne Area Chamber, along with other community organizations and businesses are partnering to gather citizen feedback and ideas.
They’re working with the University of Minnesota (Southwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership and the Center for Sustainable Building Research) to develop a conceptual design for an outdoor public plaza in Luverne.
Monday’s event will be the second in a series of informal gatherings that seek citizen input and ideas.
The first meeting on Feb. 11 (during a blizzard) attracted 40 people to the Palace Theatre where they viewed images of community gathering spaces that have been successful in other cities and learned about what plazas can do for communities.
Then they teamed up to answer questions about what they’d like to see in a plaza and what amenities it should have.
A grant-funded landscape architecture graduate student (Haily Schmitz) is working on the Luverne project with supervision from a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture.
She and Dr. Virajita Singh from the College of Design and Anne Dybsetter from the Southwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership took the lead for the Feb. 11 discussion.
Building on the results of those sessions, they worked on drawings and sketches of what might be appropriate in Luverne, and those images will be presented at the March 25 meeting.
“That should be pretty exciting for people to see,” said Chamber Director Jane Wildung Lanphere.
“The sketches will be presented for public analysis, comment and discussion, to be incorporated into the next stage of development for the plaza.”
She emphasized that the images presented Monday will be only concept drawings.
“It’s a starting point,” she said. “It’s not going to happen right away, but it should be pretty exciting to see what it could look like.”
Lanphere also emphasized the importance of community involvement now, so that all ideas and voices can be heard.
“Public input is very important, so we hope people come and share that with us,” she said.
The public can offer input through April 1 by linking to a survey at z.umn.edu/LuvPlaza.

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