Mayor Virg Bernero announced today that a series of public charrettes will be held to engage the Lansing community in designing a new, permanent outdoor amphitheater at Adado Riverfront Park. Over the course of two days, the core project team and community stakeholders will meet to create design concepts for the proposed amphitheater and surrounding environs.

“After several years of intense planning, we are ready to gather input from the Lansing community on bringing a permanent outdoor amphitheater to Adado Riverfront Park,” said Mayor Bernero. “The facility promises to strengthen the city’s existing arts and cultural offerings by transforming the park into a vibrant space capable of hosting continuous community events and top-notch entertainment.”

The concept of building an outdoor amphitheater at Adado Park has been discussed for nearly twenty years as a key addition to the city’s arts and culture infrastructure that would cultivate an artistic and physical connection between the park and the surrounding downtown and neighborhoods. Over the past two years Mayor Bernero’s administration has partnered with the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, LEAP, LEPFA and other community stakeholders to begin planning the proposed facility, which would accommodate music festivals like Common Ground and other summer concert tours, a myriad of community events currently hosted at Adado Park such as the BWL Chili Cookoff, as well as outdoor community theater and symphony performances.

“We have a strong legacy of cultural institutions in the City of Lansing. By adding a permanent outdoor stage to the cultural amenities and connecting the park to our thriving cultural district we will continue to add to the vibrancy of our entire community,” said Deborah E. Mikula, Executive Director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing.The City of Lansing was awarded a $40,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works Grant to support the design and engineering of a permanent outdoor amphitheater at Adado Riverfront Park in the heart of the city’s arts and cultural district. The city matched the grant award dollar-for-dollar to build an $80,000 budget for design of the facility and surrounding areas. SmithGroupJJR was selected as the design team for the project through a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) process.

The public is invited to provide their input at an initial presentation of the amphitheater concept on Thursday, Dec.14 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. Information gathered at the Thursday session will then be used to illustrate the preferred design concept for the facility and surrounding area, which will be presented and discussed on Friday, Dec. 15 from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. Both meetings will be held at the Lansing Center in Rooms 203-205.

Thursday, December 14:

6:00 p.m – Reception for core project team, stakeholders and community will be held from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. – Presentation of preliminary concept, community input and preferred concept discussion

Friday, December 15:

3:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Presentation of preferred concept for additional community input