Editor's note: This story was updated from its original version.

Dominic Moore-Dunson greeted residents as they approached a white poster colored in sticky notes. Pink. Green. Blue. Orange. 

The poster’s written prompt served as a pleasant entry point to discuss the Akron Innerbelt, one of Akron’s most damaging past failures: “What moves you? (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc.)”

Answers showcased some of the area’s best qualities. 

“Riding bikes/ running the trail.”

“Employ local talent – tap their wisdom.” 

“Educate our youth about what happened.”

Throughout Thursday evening’s event at House Three Thirty, four urban design firms vying to reckon with the Innerbelt’s past and imagine its healed future introduced themselves to civic-minded community members by listening more than explaining. While the groups gave presentations later in the evening, the first hour of the program focused on discovering residents’ frustrations and desires.

Dominic Moore-Dunson, an Akron-area choreographer, professional dancer, producer and teaching artist.
Dominic Moore-Dunson, an Akron-area choreographer, professional dancer, producer and teaching artist, was part of a presentation made by PORT, one of four urban design firms vying to be selected to work on the Akron Innerbelt project. The firms each made presentations at an event hosted by the City of Akron at House Three Thirty. (Susan Zake / Signal Akron)

This collaborative approach is what convinced Moore-Dunson, a 2008 graduate of Firestone High School, to join PORT, one of the consulting teams. 

As opposed to saying, ‘Here’s our idea; this is what we think, what y’all think?’” said the award-winning choreographer, professional dancer, producer, teaching artist and speaker.

“I live amongst us. And I deal with this everyday. I know what it means to live in a city where I go downtown and it’s empty and you learn the history of Howard Street and say well, ‘Why can’t we have that back?’”

The City of Akron is expected to hire one of the four urban design firms to develop a master plan, another step closer to revitalizing the four-mile stretch of land adjacent to downtown. The firms include Agency (agencylp.com), Cooper Carry (coopercarry.com), PORT (porturbanism.com) and Sasaki (sasaki.com).

Mordecai Cargill, who joined the Sasaki team on the stage, joked that the “American Idol” selection process for selecting firms reflects the importance of allowing feedback from Akron residents.

“You have some of the best designers in the world deciding we want to contribute to doing something that hasn’t been done before,” said Cargill, the co-founder and creative director of ThirdSpace Action Lab and Third Space Café in Cleveland. “To contribute to the work of healing. And recovery. And remembering. That it’s not just a painful process … it’s a process that’s supposed to lead us to new visions.”

The 1925 street map of Akron.
The 1925 street map of Akron showing the street alignments of downtown before the construction of the Innerbelt and urban renewal projects of the 1960s and 1970s. Credit: (Online Map Room, Summit Memory)

History of the Akron Innerbelt

Prior to the freeway construction, neighborhoods rich with Black culture populated this space, Jim Crow be damned. Popular hotels, houses of worship and restaurants earned the nearby area along North Howard Street the nickname “Little Harlem” after attracting some of the best talent of the time – from Ella Fitzgerald to Count Basie. 

Then came the bulldozers.

In the name of urban renewal, hundreds of homes and businesses in the path of the Innerbelt were acquired, starting in the late 1960s. Compensation was often unfair, community leaders said decades later. (Similar projects backed by state and federal funds emerged in other Black neighborhoods across America.)

In Akron, construction of state Route 59 began in 1970. Originally envisioned to connect the west (I-76/77) and north (state Route 8) legs of the Akron expressway system, the freeway was not completed until the mid-1980s, and never as originally planned.

Another sticky note board asked participants to explain what the Akron Innerbelt has meant to them during its many stages. Some of the responses included:

Past: 

“Lost heritage, family memories/stories.”

“UPROOTED.”

“LOST.”

Bulldozed.”

Present:

“Sad that the space sits unused & empty. Frustrated that this conversation has not led to results. Glad the conversation is continued.”

“Desolate.”

“WASTE of CAPITAL – Human & Environment.”

Future:

“I’d like to see a mix of housing, public green space, parks, small businesses, minimal traffic.”

“Community.”

“Unity.”

Cards that ask questions about the Akron Innerbelt
Cards that ask questions about the Akron Innerbelt hang from strings set up by Agency, an urban design firm,, at House Three Thirty. Agency is one of four finalists vying for the job to rebuild the Innerbelt area near downtown — residents had the chance to meet with members of the four firms and hear 15-minute presentations from them about their visions for the project. (Susan Zake / Signal Akron)

Akron mayor: ‘Together in building that future’

By the late 1990s, Akron mayors started the long process of righting wrongs, from vacating portions of the freeway to returning vacant land to the city for public use. 

And now, Akron’s current mayor, Shammas Malik, who attended Thursday’s event, is eager for his administration and community leaders to travel to Columbus and Washington D.C. to secure project funding. 

“I’m really excited because I think this is an opportunity to do what we’ve been doing,” Malik said, “which is study our history and study our past and acknowledge the racial injustice that was the creation of the Innerbelt. And also look at the future and be a part of it, all together in building that future.”

Goals for the Akron Innerbelt

As Signal Akron reported in April, the three goals for the firms that responded to the city include:

  • Creating a vision for the Innerbelt site that is reflective of the community’s values.
  • Creating opportunities for financial growth for neighborhood residents adjacent to the Innerbelt site and throughout the city.
  • Promoting equity through physical interventions and community benefits.

Here’s some information about the four finalists:

Agency Landscape + Planning, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based “mission-driven practice dedicated to addressing social equity, cultural vitality and environmental resilience through design excellence, strategic planning and community empowerment.”which was once the home of a thriving Black neighborhood that was torn down to make space for what became known as “the highway to nowhere.”

Sasaki Design, a Boston-based firm that “believe(s) defining the future of place must be a collective, contextual, and values-driven exercise. We all have a stake in this work.”

PORT, a Philadelphia and Chicago-based firm that “creates opportunities for the unexpected interplay between people and the natural environment, serving to animate and enrich public life and urban biodiversity.

Cooper Carry, an Atlanta-based “architecture firm that brings an internationally recognized team of design professionals to the wide variety of project types we engage in, all united in the pursuit of excellence through the practice of connective design.”

Tell the city what you think about the design firms

The event was hosted by the City of Akron, which wants to hear from Akronites about what they think of each firm. You can catch up with a livestream from the event on Mayor Shammas Malik’s Facebook page and weigh in by taking a survey on the Akron Innerbelt website.

Members of the Agency urban design firm walk along the now-closed Akron Innerbelt near Cascade Plaza. The four design firms that are finalists to reimagine the area all visited the site as part of the interview process. (Photo courtesy of the City of Akron / Alexis King)

Editor-in-Chief (she/her)
Zake has deep roots in Northeast Ohio journalism. She was the managing editor for multimedia and special projects at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she began work as a staff photographer in 1986. Over a 20-year career, Zake worked in a variety of roles across departments that all help inform her current role as Signal Akron's editor in chief. Most recently, she was a journalism professor and student media adviser at Kent State University, where she worked with the next generation of journalists to understand public policy, environmental reporting, data and solutions reporting. Among her accomplishments was the launch of the Kent State NewsLab, an experiential and collaborative news commons that connects student reporters with outside professional partners.