Lancaster Square

The Story

Hired by the City of Lancaster, PA, to facilitate landscape design concept development for a large redevelopment project known as Lancaster Square, my team at Mahan Rykiel Associates advocated for a more robust engagement process than was typical of a private development project.

To introduce the Lancaster Square project to the community, we coordinated a piggyback-style engagement effort to coincide with the City’s annual Celebrate Lancaster festival on July 29, 2018. In our space, posters collected visual preference input, and an oversized banner was mounted on a temporary wall to pose the question, “What could you see here?”

Attracted by the bright branding and the bold letters on the banner, passersby stopped to share their thoughts. The banner was relocated to a construction fence at the redevelopment site—adjacent to a transit stop—where it remained for a few weeks following the Celebrate Lancaster event to capture even more ideas.

Input from this event was collected and later augmented by a series of community meetings held throughout the City. By weaving extensive public input into the project from the very beginning, the final concept alternatives were enthusiastically embraced by the City as reflections of the communities interests and concerns.