Across from Gateway Regional Arts Center (GRAC)’s headquarters, a colorful mural is painted on the wall of the Downtown Athletic Club facing Highway 60, which turns into Main Street as it passes through downtown. The mural reads: Greetings from Mount Sterling “Gateway to the Mountains!” This phrase figures prominently in the city’s identity and speaks to Mount Sterling’s geophysical character, as a town that sits squarely between rolling bluegrass hills to the west and the rugged Appalachian Mountains to the east.
Just two blocks from downtown Mount Sterling, running along the city’s southeastern border, sits a swath of valuable green space known as the Adena Trail. Beside it lies Hinkston Creek, a waterway which today is the only accessible natural site available to residents in town. The trail and creek together carry significant potential to contribute to the economic growth of Mount Sterling, as well as being important places of community connection. Locally, Adena Trail and Hinkston Creek serve as a gateway for community members to connect with nature and their local waterways in addition to reflecting the town’s history. The trail is the site of the historic train depot and train tracks; a node known as Railroad Street, but also as the historic point of segregation separating the white and Black communities of Mount Sterling.
But Mount Sterling is a gateway in more ways than one, with significant social assets to propel its community forward. The city is energized by active citizens and local leadership that have a deep will to preserve the city’s history, as well as its green spaces. GRAC, with Jordan Campbell at the helm, serves the Mount Sterling community and broader region, with programming and exhibits, like their Contemporary Kenyan Art Collection, that bridge historic racial divides by celebrating diverse artists and changemakers that engage in Mount Sterling’s historic and present community. The DuBois Community Center (DCC), led by President Taunya Jones, has also worked tirelessly to support Mount Sterling’s Black community and honor its heritage. DCC sits inside the still-standing original gym of a Rosenwald school, a Progressive Era school building program committed to combating educational disparities in the segregated South.
Connecting Adena Trail to DCC was a focus of the CIRD workshop’s design challenge. Presently, the Adena Trail area hosts Court Days, an event dating to the Circuit Rider era, first held in 1794. Workshop participants conveyed a broad community consensus that while Court Days remains significant to Mount Sterling, year-round use of the Adena Trail is a priority going forward.
Acknowledging Mount Sterling’s history, celebrating its creativity, and applying flood management best practices to the creek informed CIRD’s design challenge to revitalize the Adena Trail. The CIRD team leveraged the insights of community leaders like Taunya and Jordan, as well as the Mount Sterling Mayor and City Council, business leaders, youth, and local experts in water resources, to identify design concepts that could transform the trail to better suit community needs year-round, with a focus on flood mitigation, creek maintenance, trail access, and cultural heritage.
Site Visit: The CIRD team’s June 5 site visit enabled the group to develop a deeper understanding of the Mount Sterling community and Adena Trail through direct conversations with community stakeholders, local leaders and touring the area first-hand. Engaging with the residents while walking the Adena Trail allowed the design team to identify some of the shared priorities and potential challenges for the upcoming workshop, while establishing rapport with different community members.
Virtual Engagement: The June 20 virtual engagement meeting empowered the CIRD team to solidify project goals and guiding principles, learn more about local assets, and begin building out the project design according to the vision of the Mount Sterling community. Representatives from GRAC, the DCC, and City Council informed the engagement’s takeaways including identifying three primary Adena Trail zones to develop. Important themes emerged such as visually affirming the Adena Trail as a “gateway,” revitalizing the trail through improved lighting and signage, and connecting disparate parts of town to make the Adena Trail an accessible and inclusive space for all.
CIRD Local Design Workshop: July 31-August 2 – Workshop activities kicked off at DuBois Community Center with youth focus groups that included students from Gateway Children’s Services who are frequent downtown and Adena Trail users. The youth workshops were followed by a community dinner attended by over 100 residents who provided feedback to CIRD’s resource team throughout the evening, including opportunities to vote on favored design concepts with sticky notes. The collective input from the site visit, virtual engagement session, focus groups, and community event provided ample fodder for the CIRD resource team to take forward on design concepts.
On Day 2 of the workshop, CIRD’s team met with Jordan of GRAC, Mayor Al Botts, city council members Tracy Pearson and Pam Murphy, and Barry Tonning, a local water resources expert, to reflect on the prior evening and gather further input. Candace Maloney-Franklin, Griffin Snyder, and Caitlin MacKenzie from CIRD’s design partner To Be Done Studio, with support from landscape designer Hannah Cantrell from the University of Kentucky, then spent the day preparing design concepts, while HAC team members Stephen Sugg and Sierra Mack-Erb met one-on-one with other key stakeholders and assisted with presentation development, including suggestions for future public and private sector funding for the project. The workshop culminated on Day 3 in a community breakfast and morning presentation at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, a historic landmark and community gathering place. Candace, along with the rest of the CIRD resource team, emphasized that the design concepts being presented represent the community’s desires and affirmed that the CIRD project was a visualization of good ideas from the community and current investment in the Adena Trail.
Ultimately, the Mount Sterling workshop is emblematic of the power of community-engaged design. The hard work of local stakeholders on the ground, like Jordan and Taunya, and excellent community turnout, including substantive contributions from youth, ensured the development of robust design concepts for an amphitheater, boardwalk, and other amenities for the Adena Trail and Mount Sterling community to propel the project forward.
The workshop’s final event was a chance for CIRD’s team to share preliminary findings and renderings in a conversation open to the entire community. Notably, community members at the forum suggested creating ‘Friends of the Adena Trail’ to ensure forward momentum for the project. Additionally, important community feedback, like the organization of the project into phases with tiered priorities, will be incorporated into the development of the final design book. Local leaders including Mayor Botts used the event to laud CIRD’s ability to synthesize community needs and understand the local landscape, while GRAC’s Jordan Campbell thanked CIRD for “allowing the community to dream.”
Partnerships and momentum developed during the workshop process will further the development of the amphitheater, boardwalk, and other amenities included in the design concepts.
The CIRD team will provide Mount Sterling with a drawing package and design book that will serve as a guide for the project's next steps. The design book includes a summary of engagement activities, project and community history, and final design concept drawings that incorporate feedback from the workshop presentation. CIRD's team has also provided recommendations for potential funding opportunities across the multiple project phases relevant to each zone of the Adena Trail. Notably in Mount Sterling, significant funding has already been secured for the development of water retention basins and an amphitheater that will anchor Adena Trail development.
GRAC will continue to engage with other communities in the CIRD Design Learning Cohort throughout 2024. The cohort program offers additional access to CIRD's technical assistance and peers learning with other rural community leaders. It also allows the ongoing work in Mount Sterling to inform national rural design conversations.
