Since 2010, the Greening Awards have celebrated the most outstanding examples of private greening in downtown Minneapolis. Greening is one of the MDID’s key initiatives. The awards recognize and reward downtown’s greenest spaces.

MDID hopes the awards will inspire and encourage greening in all downtown businesses and spaces, therefore making the entire downtown mpls community a greener place.

“It takes a whole community to create vibrant, thriving spaces for everyone to enjoy,” said Steve Cramer, President & CEO of the Mpls Downtown Improvement District. “Each year we see businesses, organizations and individuals alike help in making our downtown a greener place, and our awards are a way for us to proudly showcase those extraordinary efforts.”

During the 2017 nomination process, there are a variety of ways to show support for your favorite green spaces in downtown Minneapolis. Nominations are open to the public and can be made in several different ways.

• Visit www.mplsdid.com/greeningawards and submit your nomination through the nomination form
• On social media post using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and name the green space you’d like to nominate and include the hashtag #GreenAwardsMpls
• Email info@mplsdid.com and submit your nomination

Photos of each location during nomination are not required but are helpful in describing the location.

Nominations will be open for the entire month of July, wrapping up on July 31. The nominations that the MDID receives will be categorized and finalists will then be selected for each category by the MDID staff. The finalists in every category will be publicly voted on later this summer to determine the winners of each 2017 Greening & Public Realm Award.

In 2016, there were a total of 12 Greening & Public Realm Award winners, four of which were first time winners. The 2016 first-time winners included The Living Bus Shelter (Small Green Space Activation), The Times They Are A-Changin’ — Mural by Eduardo Kobra (Public Art), Wells Fargo Towers (Streetscape Green Infrastructure) and The Commons (Public Realm Improvement). In addition to these four first-time winners, the Loring Greenway won its seventh Greening & Public Realm Award in as many years.

To learn more about the 2017 Greening & Public Realm Awards, visit mplsdid.com/greeningawards or follow along @MinneapolisDID on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About the Mpls Downtown Improvement District:

Founded in early 2009, after more than five years of formative planning and advocacy by the downtown business community, the MDID delivers higher levels of service to make downtown cleaner, greener, safer and more vibrant throughout a 120-block area, as is the case with most Business Improvement Districts. For more information, visit www.mplsdid.com.