Experience Mill Creek
A community-led action plan restoring the creek and unlocking equitable opportunity across the Mill Creek Valley
Experience Mill Creek is stitching together decades of planning, major infrastructure investments, and local leadership to steer the Mill Creek Valley into a place where residents, workers, and visitors thrive. Working with City and institutional partners, business and property owners, funders, and resident leaders, we are focused on three focus areas. Each combines small-area visions, community advisory committees, activation pilots, and an implementation framework that centers on environmental justice, economic opportunity, and culturally rooted storytelling. The work translates a long-term valley vision into near-term strategies that ensure local community members experience tangible benefits as the creek is renewed and public spaces become activated in new ways.
Services
Plan
Develop
Brand
Activate
Operate
Timeframe
2024 – Present
Client
City of Cincinnati, Yard & Company leading with HomeBase Cincinnati, Mill Creek Alliance, Tri-State Trails, and philanthropic partners stewarding area-wide strategy
Location
Mill Creek Valley, Cincinnati, Ohio
Connecting the Way
We organize the valley into three focus areas so that creek restoration, greenway investments, and neighborhood connections reinforce one another. The plan aligns trail investments and waterway improvements with main-street connections, trail endcaps, and civic anchors so that Mill Creek functions as an everyday corridor rather than a set of isolated projects. We coordinate with public agencies and major investments to ensure that neighborhood benefits are planned and measurable in each focus area.
This approach keeps creek restoration tied to local economies and everyday mobility so that new investment connects jobs, housing, and cultural nodes rather than delivering benefits only at a regional scale.
Vision, Principles, and Area Experiences
We develop a clear vision for the valley and a compact set of principles that guide every small-area decision. The vision incorporates a success measurement statement, guiding principles, and mood boards that show how materials, color, programming, and storytelling will be realized in each focus area. This combination gives implementation partners a shared compass and helps teams design pilots and long-term investments that fit the personality and culture of each place.
Community-Led Pilots and Stewardship
Local leadership is powering implementation. Each focus has a small advisory committee of residents, business owners, and cultural leaders, who meet regularly with the Experience Mill Creek team to co-create public-space concepts, building reuse strategies, and storytelling approaches. Committees run pilots, test logistics, and steward the plans so implementation reflects neighborhood culture and priorities. That resident-led testing lets pilots iterate quickly, win community consent, and scale with local capacity.
Advisory committees are intentionally small and action-oriented. Most committees include 4 to 7 members who meet for several working sessions during the early stages.
Project Impact
Experience Mill Creek is turning environmental recovery into everyday opportunities by centering resident leadership and striving for equitable outcomes along the renewed Mill Creek.