The Noble-Ity Project

The Noble Neighborhood is home to many ordinary people who have extraordinary stories. Writers, athletes, healthcare workers, educators, volunteers, refugees, all families and friends. These are the stories that are to be highlighted through The NOBLE-ity Project, retold through prose and art painted on benches installed in public places. It will brighten the corridor with art and history, inviting passthrough shoppers and local residents alike to embrace the rich community of the neighborhood—inviting them to sit and stay awhile. 

The Noble Neighbors and FutureHeights Noble-Ity Project connects high school students from the Noble Neighborhood with this civic projects in which 4-6 students will work with a local historian to research the neighborhood and conduct resident interviews.  The stories gathered will be presented to a review panel to help select which best represent the neighborhood’s history and culture, to incorporate into the bench designs.  An area artist will join the process and work with the students to create the mural-style bench artwork.

These benches are not only meant to service pedestrians (especially those with physical disabilities and other mobility limitations) but also to reflect the unique history & culture of the Noble Neighborhood.

SPRING 2021

• Purchase and Install benches in key locations along the Corridor. - Complete

SUMMER 2021

• Launch ioby.com fund-match campaign - Complete

FALL 2021

• Recruit and establish Student Ambassador cohort
• Conduct research and interviews

SPRING 2022

• Choose 6 stories and people to be illustrated on benches.
• Oversee final artwork, implemented by local artist & students

The Noble-ity project is an Early Action Project of the Noble Road Corridor Planning Project (NRCPP). NRCPP is a result of a myriad of civic engagement, housing studies, and grassroots activism. The NRCPP, which was comprised of a market analysis and revitalization plan for the Noble Road Corridor, had the following goals:

• enhancing the image of the Noble Neighborhood by improving the commercial and mixed-use development at the neighborhood’s “front doors” along the Noble Corridor;
• improving the quality of life for residents of the Noble Neighborhood by providing higher quality retail and service businesses along the Noble Corridor;
• providing additional jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for local residents;
• promoting “placemaking” and the resulting strengthening of community life;
• making productive use of sites that are currently vacant or under-utilized;
• promoting walking, bicycling and transit use along the corridor;
• increasing safety by facilitating development and revitalization that puts more eyes and ears on the street;
• increasing property and income tax revenues to the cities and school districts;
• ensuring that development is sustainable environmentally, socially and economically; and
• other goals identified in the community engagement process.

The Noble-Ity project is a way to achieve immediate and visible change, in order to move values of the project goals forward, while working on the longer-term, more transformational goals, that could take several years to accomplish. This placemaking project is not only aligned with the ultimate vision of the NRCPP, but also builds momentum, helps create neighborhood identity and pride, and serves people in the neighborhood but offering seating and a place for people to rest, particularly those who may be waiting for the bus, walking home from the grocery store or a local business, and creates space for people to meet along the street.