City of Hermiston Breaks Ground on New Festival Street

The City of Hermiston celebrated the groundbreaking of their new festival street this week! Serving as a central gateway into downtown Hermiston, and a cornerstone for the city, the NE 2nd plaza will help stimulate economic development as well as enhance community engagement by providing a space for public programming such as farmer's markets and art festivals. GreenWorks worked with Anderson Perry & Associates and a committee of local business owners to provide preliminary design concepts for the street. Construction on phase one of the project should be complete by Memorial Day.

Graphic rendering by Michael Corrente.

Sandpoint First and Cedar

GreenWorks is currently working on an exciting project in the City of Sandpoint, Idaho. The First and Cedar Streetscape Project, led by Century West Engineering, seeks to enhance the character of Downtown Sandpoint by creating a built environment that encourages and supports multi-modal transportation on a pedestrian-friendly scale. For more information on this project, please visit its website: http://sandpointstreets.com/

So many people are contributing to the success of this project. GreenWorks wants to acknowledge team partners Christine Fueston and Dennis Fuller of Century West Engineering, Kody Van Dyk and Debbie Van Dyk of Clearwater Engineering, Morrison Maierle (traffic engineering), ALLWEST (geotech), Trindera Engineering (electrical engineering), James A. Sewell and Associates (land surveying), and Plateau Archaeological Investigations (archaeological/cultural). Thanks Team!

OR 213 Redland Road Crossing Update

GreenWorks worked the City of Oregon City and OBEC Consulting Engineers in developing planting and irrigation design for the following OR213 Redlands Road Crossing, providing planting and irrigation design services for the Jughandle Project. Specifically, GreenWorks worked closely with the City of Oregon City and OBEC Consulting Engineers in developing planting designs for the following: solar-powered irrigation controller, 82 new street trees, over 500 landscape trees, and over 25,000 shrubs and groundcover plants. The city has done an excellent job maintaining the planting and keeping the this gateway to Oregon City beautiful since the project was completed. Check out the most recent photos below.

What is a Log Dog?

We hear this a lot in reference to the art feature of the Clay Street Green Street project in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID). The Log Dog sculptures incorporated into the Clay Street swales reference and celebrate the district’s industrial past. In the 19th Century, the lumber industry used the Willamette River as a conduit for transporting logs to the lumber mills established along the banks of the river. Logs were tied together into rafts and piloted down the Willamette in massive convoys. These log rafts where chained together by cable that ran through attachments known as log dogs. The historic log dogs were like thick needles, driven into the floating logs before a cable was pulled through the eye and cinched to bundle them together, creating a raft. GreenWorks designed the streetscape for a 12-block section of SE Clay Street. Working with KPFF and artist, Linda M. Wysong, the green street provides a pedestrian friendly corridor from the Ladd’s Addition neighborhood to the Eastbank Esplanade, strengthening connectivity and improving the pedestrian realm. The green street honors the industrial district’s history through the art installations and interpretive elements. GreenWorks has contributed to the redevelopment of Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District (CEID) over the last decade through improvements to the Clay Street Right of Way / RiverEast pedestrian plaza and most recently with Clay Street Green Street. The completed project provides sustainable environmental benefits, including vegetated stormwater management, pedestrian and bicycle passage, and strategies that maintain freight movement and business activities throughout the CEID.

The project’s artist describes the inspiration on the Clay Street Log Dog: “The Wetlands were filled, the mill erected and a city built. The land is transformed as the water continues to flow. It may seep into the earth or be hidden by stone and concrete, but it continues to connect, sustain and give form to our lives. Honor and protect the river.” Linda M. Wysong, artist

Green Innovations from Portland BES

Portland Bureau of Environmental Services has created a video about green innovations within the city. You can check out the video on their website or below.

Cascade Avenue Under Construction in Sisters, Oregon

Construction of the Sisters Cascade Avenue (US 20) streetscape project is making progress. This project will increase walkability downtown while expressing the identity of Sisters.

Lake Oswego 2nd Street Project Completion

Our 2nd Street project in the heart of downtown Lake Oswego has come to an end, and we wanted to show a few photos of the finished product. With the slight narrowing of the curb to curb width of the street, the City transformed the street into a beautiful modern streetscape within the core of the downtown business district. Widened sidewalks, street lights, benches, driveways, street trees, and unique stormwater planters were all delicately knitted together by the design team to deliver a streetscape project that will benefit the surrounding business community while protecting the urban watershed. This project included a number of significant design elements such as:

1. Lined stormwater planters and curb extensions that will manage approximately 1,000,000 gallons of urban runoff while protecting adjacent commercial basements
2. Structural soil tree wells that extend under sidewalk to provide and additional 10 cubic yards of additional root space per tree.
3. Efficient inlet design to ensure stormwater capture on a steep street
4. Unique low fencing around facilities patterned after fencing at City's Millennium Park Plaza

We were privileged to be part of an incredible team that included City of Lake Oswego staff, Kittelson and Associates, and 3J Consulting.

NW Harbor Avenue Design Offers Bike/Ped Friendly Concepts

GreenWorks recently presented design alternatives to the City of Lincoln City and public for the city’s NW Harbor Avenue Improvements. GreenWorks is assisting the City of Lincoln City with both a process for public involvement and design for NW Harbor Avenue improvements that are safe, accessible, and enhance civic character. These improvements support the city’s commitment to public spaces that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). GreenWorks is recommending an alternative for a more walkable, bicycle-friendly street that provides links to the city’s nearby beach access. The design also provides improvements that build on the city’s character and create better connections between neighborhoods and commercial areas.

Birdseye View of Oregon City’s “Jughandle Project” at Highway 213

This birdseye view of Oregon City’s Jughandle Project at Highway 213 shows the scale and context of this significant infrastructure project, which is currently under construction. GreenWorks prepared this graphic to illustrate our role in helping design a new landscape gateway into downtown Oregon City, a new roundabout with planting medians, green streets with stormwater facilities, street trees, bicycle lanes and a 6+ acre floodplain mitigation site.

Green Streets in Tucson, AZ

The Watershed Management Group (WMG) out of Tucson, AZ has been promoting the installation of green street facilities in the SW region for rainwater harvesting.  In August of 2010, WMG put together a comprehensive document called Green Infrastructure for Southwestern Neighborhoods that describes and illustrates the benefits and installation techniques for green street projects.  Recently they produced a video showing the real world application of their green street designs.  WMG describes the video as...

This short (5 minute) video explains the benefits of using green infrastructure and how WMG advocates and implements these practices through educational workshops.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyGC6KSi74&feature=playerembedded]

Kudos to WMG for implementing these projects and teaching neighbors about the benefits of green street facilities.