Plaza Roosevelt is a neighborhood-driven plan to strengthen the economic, educational, healthcare, and social opportunities for residents in the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood of Grand Rapids. The initiative is a collaborative effort between multiple groups, including Habitat for Humanity of Kent County.

Major revitalization initiatives like Plaza Roosevelt require partners that are as risk-aware, flexible, and hard-working as the residents. Roosevelt Park Neighborhood residents were having a difficult time envisioning how the project would look and directly benefit their neighborhood. CARNEVALE saw the immediate need to address that. The solution required us to carefully bridge the multilingual communication gap between all stakeholders and to synthesize the needs of people using technology. Working as part of the CARNEVALE.co/op program, we utilized our experienced project management and design teams to deliver a next-generation experience that solved some of the challenges neighbors were facing.

We created a neighborhood-wide augmented reality (AR) tour, allowing neighbors to visualize upcoming renovations in true-to-life scale. Not everyone had access to technology powerful enough to support AR experiences, so neighbors with older mobile devices were able to envision the upcoming building with 360 panoramas for an equally informative experience. The user experience was immediately engaging, easy to understand, and playful.

The Plaza Roosevelt AR tour brings people together, socially, and emotionally. The resulting consensus from residents, Habitat for Humanity, and the many other partners has been instrumental in the success of this critical community investment.