Design vision emerges for Highland Park Place of Remembrance; input sessions May 9 and 11

SWA Group, a landscape architecture firm, and All Together, a community engagement firm, on Thursday, May 7, presented to City of Highland Park officials early design concepts for the  long-planned Place of Remembrance, honoring the victims and survivors of the 2022 Highland Park shooting. 

The Place of Remembrance Working Group session marked the second phase of community engagement for the project, with members of the working group reviewing ideas shaped by public input gathered over the past several months.

To come up with the preliminary design concepts, SWA and All Together reviewed input from 179 community members collected during Phase 1 design ideation between February and April. The engagement process included feedback from victims’ families, injured survivors, those present during the shooting but not injured, and other community members and organizations at large. 

Six overarching themes reportedly were incorporated in the designs: 1.) Naming the seven people whose lives were taken and acknowledging all who were harmed, 2.) Honoring the people and communities that showed up, 3.) Telling the story of the full community, not only what happened, 4.) Designing for remembrance in every season, 5) Holding a space for cultural diversity with intention, 6) Letting people choose when, and whether, to engage. 

As The Record previously reported, Mayor Nancy Roterting and the council decided that the Rose Garden should be a “site for solace, respite and reflection,” whereas Port Clinton should be a “site for remembrance and tribute within a business and community hub.”

The full presentation delivered on Thursday can be VIEWED HERE.

Community members have two upcoming opportunities in Highland Park to view and provide feedback on the preliminary designs: 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday, May 9, at the Nuestro Centrer, 777 Central Ave., Suite 101; and 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Monday, May 11, at The Moraine, 1201 Park Avenue W.

The designs will be brought before the Highland Park City Council on June 8.

Rose Garden 

Ben Waldo, landscape architect with SWA Group, presented the three concepts for the Rose Garden — Woven Together, Mending Lines and Petals — as well as three concepts for Port Clinton — Woven Together, Love Letters and Petals. 

The first idea, Woven Together, includes a naturalistic garden with seven spaces tied together through a “gently meandering path,” Waldo said. 

“The idea here is that these seven unique spaces allow people to honor the deceased appropriately in their own culture by bringing in their own items,” he said. “Key themes here are grounding in nature, water and the act of walking.” 

Visitors would be given the option to walk straight through the path or wander through it. 

The seven sections, representing the seven who died that day, feature their own wooden benches. 

Water runs through the space, and during winter, the stone stays visible. Polished stone is inscribed with the victims’ names. 

Mending Lines features a narrative garden with three landscape narrative arcs and shapes, allowing visitors to “engage through an act of participation,” Waldo said. 

“This invites meditation through some grounding touchpoints of water, trees and stone,” he said. “The central feature is a base of rocks, with a reflecting pool nearby. The idea is that people can take a rock and take it to the pool and drop it in creating ripples.” 

The perimeter of the pool would include the names of the seven deceased victims.

The other concept, Petals, would include seven sculptural metal objects that stand through the changing of seasons. 

“The idea with these is that they are constant amidst the dynamics of seasonal change,” Waldo said. 

A long wall around lush plantings would include the deceased victims’ names.

The landscaping in each concept would include Armstrong gold maple coloring, quaking aspen trees, yew plants, perennial grasses and flowers, and butterfly-attracting natives. All materials include limestone, calcareous brick, thermally modified wood and etched concrete. 

Butterfly-attracting flowers are significant to the Latino community, officials explained.

“I like the aspens because they have a beautiful sound when the leaves are on them, and in the winter time they are so beautiful in the snow,” Rotering said. “So, bravo.” 

Rotering, however, did not support the second concept’s rock and ripple pool, as it would limit activity in the wintertime, she said. 

The mayor expressed favor toward the first concept. 

“I appreciate the thought that went into it [the first concept]; it has more detail,” she said. “And it accommodates the needs of the community, giving families the chance to focus on a victim or meander their way through.” 

She found the third concept “lacking a sense of place,” compared to the other two, she said. 

Councilmember Anthony Bloomberg expressed concerns about the second concept, as well, saying the ripple pool would require “regularly tak(ing) stones out and put(ting) them back,” he said. 

Bloomberg appreciated that there are “lovely entryways,” in the design that connect the street to the place of remembrance, he said. 

Gaby Valverde Strobehn, a working group member from the Josselyn Center, was leaning toward the first concept, which she said would allow more for “the Latino community to bring flowers — as they typically do.” 

Port Clinton

The Woven Together concept for the Port Clinton second location would involve removing damaged existing trees and replacing them with seven new ones to represent the seven deceased victims. 

The second concept, Love Letters, would allow visitors to put a letter in a postal box, in memory of the victims.

And the third concept, Petals, would feature an eighth petal statue — matching seven that could be placed in the rose garden — inscribed with the names of the deceased victims.

City Manager Ghida Neukirch had concerns with the second concept. 

“I am afraid our staff will have to go in at some point and take the letters out,” she said. “And then what do we do with them? 

“I am also worried that people will think that they can put their Santa letters there during the holidays. And we do respond to those.” 

Brian Romes, a working group member and executive director of the Park District of Highland Park, liked Woven Together.

“I like the idea of the seven trees,” he said. “If you are just driving by, they just look like trees, but if you know what those seven trees represent, it’s very meaningful.” 

The designs for Port Clinton, however, did not sit well with one community member, who felt he had to intervene. 

“I am disgusted,” said resident Michael Cohn, filled with emotion. “All I am hearing is how we want to hide where my cousin was murdered for those traumatized by the shooting. But I am traumatized, and I think the focus should be on remembering the people, especially in Port Clinton, and I don’t see it.” 

Cohn added, “We have seven trees that are going to look dead half of the year. There should be something that is going to look alive and not be dead. There needs to be something more significant, as far as representing the seven victims, whether it be a sculpture or piece of art.” 

Cohn was also turned off by the design layout from the first concept of the Rose Garden. 

“If remembering the seven victims is represented on something you walk on, I find that disrespectful to the seven people,” he said. “There has to be something more than that.” 

Trying to ease the tension, Rotering said that the remembrance is “not meant to be something you walk on,” rather that it has a bench. 

But Cohn wasn’t swayed, and thought the idea of the seven areas shouldn’t be on the ground. 

Neukirch added that the team will plan to continue doing outreach to “next of kin to make sure their voices are heard,” she said.  

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