Utility Box Art Wraps

The Southeast Como Improvement Association is working on a project, titled “Flowers are the Opposite of Graffiti,” to wrap neighborhood utility boxes with nature photos taken by residents and printed on 3M anti-graffiti vinyl.

At the Como Cookout and SECIA’s Annual Meeting, neighbors can vote on new locations and potential designs for future Utility Box Wraps. You can recommend a box for wrapping, vote on designs, submit high resolution digital photos for future wraps, and/or make a donation of any size.

To donate to the Utility Box Project:

• Send a check made out to SECIA with Utility Box in the Memo. SECIA PO Box 18460 Minneapolis, MN 55418
• Use a credit card at secomo.org or GiveMN and type Utility Box in the Tribute or Memorial box.

To submit your own art to the Utility Box Project:

• Pick out your favorite high resolution flower images with a minimum width of 3000 pixels. The photos cannot be cropped, photo-shopped, or enhanced and must be taken vertically to fit the utility boxes.
• Send your photos to Lila M Smith, Project Manager of S.E.C.I.A.’s Utility Box Project, at [email protected]

Diverter Garden

The SE Como Improvement Association’s Traffic Diverter Garden Project will turn the diverter at 15th Avenue and Talmage Avenue SE from a high berm into a rain garden with native plants which will retain and filter precipitation where it falls, as well as harvesting it from the street, if possible. Click here to view the Diverter Rain Garden plan that Metro Blooms created working with Minneapolis Public Works and using Community feedback.