The CTA Dempster Street station area in Evanston. Photo: Jaysin Trevino from Evanston, IL, US / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
A parking space outside Hewn Bakery at 810 Dempster St. was about to become a small public gathering spot in July 2014, as construction got under way on what would be Evanston’s first parklet.
Hewn, co-owned by Ellen King and Julie Matthei, worked with the City of Evanston and Petrick Architecture on the design. A parklet converts curbside parking into seating and planting space. In this case it replaced a 20-minute space in front of the bakery.
Paid for by backers
The project did not use city money. According to the Daily Northwestern, about 85 percent of the cost came from a Kickstarter campaign, with Hewn covering the rest. The goal was $14,000, and the campaign reached it days before its June 25 deadline. Evanston Patch reported that it finished with $15,426 from 159 donors.
The design used reclaimed wood and a corrugated tin frame, with native plants and herbs from neighboring Four Finches helping screen the seating from the street. Oak stumps served as benches and tables. Patch reported that the space was wheelchair accessible and included a bike rack on the east side. King told the Daily Northwestern the parklet could seat 10 to 12 people, compared with the single driver a parking space serves.
A seat on the west side of the tracks
The location mattered. King said there was no place to sit along Dempster on the west side of the tracks, and the parklet was meant to serve as a front porch for the block. City sustainability coordinator Catherine Hurley said it supported walking, biking and transit for errands and encouraged shopping locally, and described it as a small oasis for resting, eating and reading.
Matthei called the arrangement a pilot program. Patch reported that the parklet would stay in place through Nov. 1, 2014, then go into storage for winter and return April 1, 2015. A ribbon cutting was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30, with Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl expected to attend.
The parklet was small, but it gave the city a working test of how a few feet of curb could serve a business district differently.
Daniel Okafor covers business, startups and the Innovators section for The Evanston Edge.
