The Milwaukee Department of City Development along with Alderman Russell Stamper, II and community partners at the Dominican Center, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, and Walnut Way are currently in the process of developing a new comprehensive plan for the neighborhoods surrounding Fond Du Lac and North Avenues. The new plan will build on recent local planning efforts to guide development in the area for the next 10-20 years. In February of 2020, the nominee (a team of landscape architects and planners) partnered with the City of Milwaukee Department of City Development and the Fondy Farmers Market to inform the ongoing comprehensive plan update and address the potential upgrading of the market into a new city place. 

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The project is centered in a historically underrepresented neighborhood in the city of Milwaukee, WI. Context included the historic Fondy Farmers Market, the recently established Fondy Park, vacant sites, historic fabric, a major transit corridor, and green infrastructure. A core goal of the project was to address social justice in the design of the 21st century American city. The final product from the nominee was a report with recommendations from five compressive plan proposals/options that might help inform the City of Milwaukee's plan. These proposals explored transformations of the district as a catalyst for social and economic change, the role of placemaking, green infrastructure, and the significant impact that access to healthy food and community assets have in addressing mobility, health, and economic development as an extension into the downtown and the wider city context. 

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The Fondy Food Center connects Greater Milwaukee to local, fresh food – from farm to market to table – so that children learn better, adults live healthier, and communities celebrate cultural food traditions. From programs like Fondy Farmers Market on Milwaukee’s Northside to the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers Market to the Fondy Farm – Fondy’s projects work together to improve fresh, local food access for all Milwaukeeans while supporting small farmers. The Fondy Farmers Market is a century old market and Milwaukee’s largest and most diverse farmers market, as well as the springboard for Fondy Food Center’s healthy food efforts. The open-air market creates space for the community—shoppers of all ages, organization representatives, artists, and performers—to connect with each other, and the more than 40 farmers and local food producers who sell at the Market from May through November. Tens of thousands of shoppers visit the market each year —primarily drawing from Milwaukee’s North Side, but welcoming visitors from across the region. Fondy is a nationally recognized leader in connecting low-income people with the benefits of farmers markets. It was the first market in the state to accept SNAP/EBT and offers the Market Match program -which doubles the produce purchasing power for shoppers using their federal nutrition benefits.