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Team Selected to Redesign Shaker Square's Public Space

Cleveland, Ohio, March 31, 2005

The Shaker Square Public Space Advisory Committee has selected the team to redesign the public space at Shaker Square. The final selection was made from a pool of ten respondents to the Request for Qualifications for the space plan improvements These ten teams represented local, national and international leaders in landscape architecture, urban design and public art.

The chosen design team – MSI Design, Bialosky Partners Architects, and Julie Moir Messervy and Associates – will work in collaboration with Cleveland Public Art, ParkWorks and The Coral Company in coming up with a dynamic public space design plan.

The Design Team

The team is made up of extraordinary thinkers, leaders, creators and collaborators; creative people who see the vision of Shaker Square being the intersection that it is of commercial, social and cultural experiences and communities. They are dedicated to creating Shaker Square as once again a place that explodes with human activity.

Spearheading the design group is MSI Design. MSI is a landscape architecture and planning firm that enhances communities through the highest quality urban design with an emphasis on the streetscape environment. With offices in Orlando, Florida and Columbus, MSI Design has a wealth of practical experience and is able to provide a complete range of planning and landscape architectural service.

Although they have been a part of many projects throughout Cleveland, MSI Design is known best in this city for its involvement in the Wade Oval renovation in 2003. In this project, MSI was responsible for full design services in restoring the 7-acre open space back to its previous prominence.

Bialosky Partners Architects is one of the Midwest’s most successful architectural design firms. They bring 53 years of experience in design and technical excellence to the table. Besides having an office in New York City, Bialosky Partners has been a fixture at Shaker Square for more than 40 years. Through this intimate connection, they bring a “users” perspective to redesigning Shaker Square’s public space.

Bialosky Partners and MSI Design have previously worked together on various other projects throughout the region, such as the Franklin Park Conservatory Master Plan in Columbus. Currently, these two design firms are teaming together at Crocker Park in Westlake and on The Coral Company’s Domain on Lee project in Cleveland Heights.

The third party in this illustrious team, Julie Moir Messervy and Associates, is a full service creative design partnership, which works collaboratively with local artists and contractors on a wide range of selected projects, spanning the spectrum from intimate gardens to master plans and site planning.

With offices in Saxtons River, Vermont and Boston, Julie Moir Messervy’s work has encompassed local, national and international projects. Ms. Messervy’s projects always bring together the essence of both the natural and historic features in an evocative way that visitors will always remember and want to revisit repeatedly. Her recent creation in Toronto, Ontario – in collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma – of a garden and amphitheater is an excellent example of the creative engagement from which Shaker Square will most benefit.

Shaker Square’s public space design project will be Ms. Messervy’s first in Cleveland.

“Bialosky Partners’ insight will prove to be invaluable due to their long history at the Square. MSI’s knowledge and skill is evidenced by their outstanding work at Wade Circle, while July Moir Messervy has demonstrated an ability to make magic happen in all of her projects,” states Jeffrey Strean, Director of Design and Facilities at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “For a project of this magnitude, it is imperative to engage the community with the art that will be incorporated in Shaker Square’s public space. You cannot do that with a static piece of sculpture. I know this design team will succeed in this endeavor.”

 

Public Space Advisory Committee

The Shaker Square Public Space advisory committee that chose the final design team was made up of Shaker Square stakeholders. The committee reviewed ten proposals from a wide array of hopefuls, some international, for this project before agreeing on the chosen team.

Members included:

  • Reid Robbins, Executive Director of Shaker Square Area Development Corporation (SHAD)

  • David Deming, President of The Cleveland Institute of Art

  • Greg Peckham, Executive Director of Cleveland Public Art

  • Ann Zoller, Executive Director of ParkWorks

  • Tom Starinsky, Resident and SHAD Board Member

  • Jeffrey Strean, Director of Design & Facilities of Cleveland Museum of Art

  • Rachel Downey, Founder of Studio Graphique

  • Jon Forman, President of Cleveland Cinemas

  • Norman Barr, Cleveland Cinemas

  • Conor Coakley, Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the City of Cleveland

  • Ken Johnson, Councilman Ward 4 of City of Cleveland

  • Douglas Katz, Executive Chef & Owner of fire – food and drink

  • Peter Rubin, President & CEO of The Coral Company

  • David Kornbluth, Director of Development of The Coral Company.

Thanks to ParkWorks for this information.
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