WVU TAB provides project design assistance through the WVU Community Engagement Lab (CEL). CEL brings the expertise of faculty and the energy of students together with community partners to solve critical problems of design, including site design, planning, and visioning.
CEL will select fifteen projects from 2022 to 2026 to receive technical assistance and community capacity building with a
focus on brownfields redevelopment through community engaged planning and design, emphasizing creative placemaking, recreational development, and downtown revitalization. The CEL provides training and guidance to communities and stakeholders as the planning and design processes is implemented. After identifying the specific projects with site design needs, CEL will provide training and assistance to allow the local community stakeholders to undertake their own project planning towards selecting and modeling reuse options.
The CEL’s process for providing assistance begins with facilitating workshops and community engagement events, to understand the site reuse vision, and to help establish a connection and build strong relationships between the local government, the project stakeholders, and the community. The CEL uses these events to train the project stakeholders in best practices in redevelopment planning and visioning. CEL will provide model project plans as case studies that address linkages between environmental, economic, and social issues at brownfields sites, including: green revitalization, cleanup and redevelopment, port and waterfront utilization, energy issues, air and water quality issues, leveraging partner agency resources, sustainable development climate impacts, floodplain mitigation, green building design approaches, and quality of life related to social issues such as equitable development, affordable housing, and environmental justice. Trainings will reveal the diversity of these integrated challenges and opportunities in applying them to local social, economic, and environmental contexts for the most desirable planning and design outcomes.
Other support for project development and Design Assistance is available from our team of experts in project finance, health, remediation, and site preparation to ensure the site reuse designs align with appropriate state clean-up protocol and are responsive to public health concerns.
For more information or to request assistance, contact us at wvutab@mail.wvu.edu or visit the Community Engagement Lab.