Green Infrastructure Digest

The Tennessee Urban Forestry conference was in town recently and asked Hawkins Partners to give a guided tour of the Nashville Public Square and Deaderick Street. This marked our first “official” tour of Deaderick Street to discuss all of the exciting new aspects of the green street.

The recent transformation of Deaderick Street recalls the historic importance of the street and enhance the corridor’s prominence as an important civic axis. Prior to the renovations, the street had become most widely known as the central transfer point for the Metro bus system. In the Fall of 2008 the bus system’s hub was relocated one block over to the ambitious Music City Central, presenting an opportunity to re-envision the street itself

The renovations to the street primarily focused on addressing stormwater issues and urban trees. The existing streetscape was home to an assortment of unhealthy trees ranging in sizes from 2” caliper up to 24”+. Each and every one of them were shoehorned into a 4’x4’ planting zone and struggling to adapt to urban conditions. The renovations included removing those trees and providing larger and deeper planting areas that would not only give a larger volume of soil for the tree roots, but also provide many areas in which the stormwater could travel to, thus reducing the loads into the storm system. Bioretention zones were implemented in pedestrian bulbs at the intersections and in relation to the existing catch basins. These planting areas were also excavated to a depth that would accept enough engineered soils to allow infiltration and planted with plants that can adapt to the extremes of wet and dry conditions. Pervious area within the corridor was increased by over 700%.

Many other elements of sustainability were included, such as:

• Crushed and recycled concrete used for the pavement subbase,
• Fly ash utilized in the concrete mix,
• Porous concrete,
• LED light fixtures,
• Native and drought tolerant plant materials,
• Solar powered parking meters,
• Water efficient irrigation system,
• Many local vendors and fabricators,
• The addition of bike racks to help encourage a healthier way to travel, and
• The addition of recycling receptacles along the street.

We’re hoping that in the near future, permanent retail kiosks that were proposed in the master plan will be added to the street, further enlivening the corridor. Those kiosks are proposed to have an extensive greenroof on each. In addition, the master plan identified areas for future free standing retail buildings and liner buildings that could be added on the blank facades.

– Laura Schroeder