By Kendrick Brown

The College Park City Council unanimously voted to redistribute a grant to fund a new public arts project in Lakeland during Tuesday’s meeting.

This project, known as the Lakeland Heritage Arts, intends to add 10 unique murals across the Lakeland Walking Tour, one of College Park’s three historic walking tours that connects 18 crucial landmarks to the Lakeland community. These murals are intended to represent important fixtures of the community’s past, such as murals of the old trolley lines that used to exist within the community, connecting it to the wider region.

The Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, an independent government unit dedicated to supporting the history and culture of the state, originally gave a grant to the planning and community development department to fund the Lakeland Community Heritage Augmented Reality Tour Phase II in 2022. A planned augmented reality add-on to the walking tour, the project aimed to place six new physical markers alongside 25 QR codes that would be used to link tourists to historical documents and audio.

The project experienced multiple delays over the years due to legal issues, unclear scope and other failings, the council said in its agenda for the meeting. The council either had to forfeit the funds back to the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority or repurpose them for a similar goal, leading to the creation of the Lakeland Heritage Arts Project.

College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir said that augmented reality “could be defined as a broader umbrella of arts.” The transition from augmented reality to art is not a change in direction but a re-scoping of the tools used to draw more attention to the walking tour and to celebrate Lakeland as a community.

Lakeland is a historically Black community where the urban renewal of the 1970s caused community members to lose their homes. In addition, a third of the neighborhood was eventually replaced by the man-made Lake Artemesia once the Metro Green Line was being constructed in the 1990s. 

District 2 Councilmember Llatetra Brown Esters, who represents the Lakeland neighborhood on the council, reaffirmed its place in the community.

“Lakeland has a permanent place within College Park,” Esters said, following the meeting. “Over the years, after the city made a commitment to actually making good on their contribution to urban renewal and acknowledging that, wanting to now make a difference is what’s huge.”

The Lakeland Heritage Arts Project, funded by the city and the authority grant, will cost a total of $28,382. Work on the project is expected to begin this November and be completed in November 2026. 

Before work on the project can start, the council needs approval from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority board, which is scheduled to vote on the revised project on Oct. 22.

When asked after the meeting about whether the authority might have any issues approving the change, District 2 Councilmember Susan L. Whitney hesitated to answer, saying, “I certainly hope not, but … I have no way of knowing how they evaluate things.” 

Featured Image: The outside of College Park City Hall. Photo Credit: Monique James