Architectural renderings provided by Mike Thompson of Arch-IT-tech Inc. show what the proposed outdoor learning center in the empty lots across from East Garfield Elementary School would look like.

The Steubenville North Choice Neighborhood planning team is inviting community members to attend an event next week marking a significant community initiative in its two-year planning process to redevelop the city’s North End neighborhood.

From 4:30-6 p.m. Tuesday will be the Early Action Gardening Event. Taking place in the empty lots across from East Garfield Elementary School — at the corner of North Fifth Street and Sherman Avenue — the event will see plants and pots distributed to attendees for at-home cultivation. Planters will be able to bring their greenery back to the site upon completion of a permanent outdoor learning center and gardening space on the lots.

The Steubenville North Choice Neighborhood Ambassadors, residents taking an active role in assisting the project, have been “instrumental in creating and coordinating” the gardening event, said Eliza Kelley, president and founder of EMIT Training Consultants, which handles the Steubenville North project’s day-to-day operations in collaboration with the city and Jefferson Metropolitan Housing Authority.

The proposed learning space is the Steubenville North Choice Neighborhood Plan’s “early action project,” a physical, community-centered improvement using a portion of planning grant funds obtained from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The city of Steubenville and Jefferson Metropolitan Housing Authority were awarded a $500,000 HUD Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant in December 2022 to create a plan for redeveloping 206 JMHA-owned low-income housing units — and other areas of opportunity — in the North End into new mixed-income developments. The planning grant sets the city and JMHA up to apply for up to $50 million in HUD implementation funds.

Accomplishing an early action project is required by HUD for its planning grant.

The early action project is being funded with $100,000 from the planning grant and $200,000 contributed by the city. Petrossi said Steubenville City Schools owns the lots across from East Garfield and will maintain the completed project.

The pavilion will be used by East Garfield during the school year but open for neighborhood gatherings and various events during the summer.

Mike Thompson of Arch-IT-tech Inc. is donating his services for the project, Petrossi said, adding that numerous other individuals and organizations have agreed to partner, though nothing is firmly established yet.

Original concepts for the early action project included art on the lots’ surrounding asphalt roads. The planning team submitted a grant application to Bloomberg Philanthropies that was ultimately unsuccessful. Right now, the art aspect is “not a primary focus,” Petrossi said, though other funding avenues are being sought.

Petrossi said roughly one-third of cities awarded HUD’s planning grant receive the subsequent implementation grant. However, he said, “In the event (the implementation grant) is not an option, we want to be able to implement using other funding sources.”

“Any money that the city can budget toward the project will help with any future grant funding, whether it be from Choice Neighborhood or from other sources,” Petrossi said, noting that private investment would also make the North End project more likely to do better in consideration for HUD’s implementation funding.

The Steubenville North Choice Neighborhood Plan is midway through its two-year planning process, which Petrossi said is guided by resident’s wants. Chicago-based planning firm COLLABO has collected input from residents over the past year and a half and is currently compiling feedback from three unique North End redevelopment draft concepts into a single concept for submission to HUD by year’s end.

The planning team will host a community meeting July 9 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the early action project site, with a ceremony at 6 p.m.