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University Park Alliance’s 2013 Innovators Speaker Series will feature 5X����’s Terry Schwarz at its next program. Schwarz is director of Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. The title of her presentation is “Transforming Vacant Spaces: Creating Value from Vacancy in the Urban Footprint.”

The event takes place Feb. 20 at 6:30 p.m. in the ballroom of the Andrew Jackson House, which is located at 277 E. Mill St. in Akron, Ohio. The event is free, but seating is limited to 100 people per presentation. Reservations are required by emailing info@upakron.com or calling 330-777-2070.

Schwarz oversees Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, which is part of the urban design graduate program and the public service activities of the university’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design. It is located at the northeast corner of Euclid Avenue and East 13th Street in the PlayhouseSquare district of Cleveland, housed on the second story of the historic Cowell and Hubbard Building.

Schwarz’s work at Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative includes neighborhood and campus planning, commercial and residential design guidelines and ecological strategies for vacant land reuse. In 2005, Schwarz launched the collaborative’s Shrinking Cities Institute in an effort to understand and address the implications of population decline and large-scale urban vacancy in Northeast Ohio. As an outgrowth of the Shrinking Cities Institute, she established Pop Up City, a temporary use initiative for vacant and underutilized sites in Cleveland.

The Urban Innovators Speaker Series features world-class thinkers and practitioners presenting creative approaches to revitalizing its city center. Historically, cities have been the engines of the U.S. economy and today play an even greater role in fostering economic growth as incubators of innovation. This series provides a platform for the sharing of best practices and the exploration of ideas to transform thinking and accelerate the kinds of core city investment that will lead to competitive success for Greater Akron in the new urban economy.

The series is presented by University Park Alliance and underwritten by the Greater Akron Chamber. University Park is an emerging urban neighborhood in Akron where a diverse population actively pursues an eclectic and exciting life of health, education, sustainability and community. The 50-block
neighborhood is strategically located at the center of education, medicine, technology and culture.

For more information about the 2013 Innovators Speaker Series and the Feb. 20 event, visit .

For more information about Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, visit www.kent.edu/caed/designcollaborative.