Deaderick Street Discussed at StormCon 2010

20 08 2010

Kim Hawkins, a principal with our office, recently spoke at this years StormCon in San Antonio, TX. She and Jim Snyder P.E., who at the time of the design and construction of the street was with Metro Nashville Public Works and who is now with Metro Nashville Water Services , spoke about the process of bring Nashville’s 1st Green Street to fruition. The following is the abstract about the presentation.

ABSTRACT: DEADERICK STREET – TENNESSEE’S 1ST GREEN STREET

Nashville, TN

Nashville Metro Public Works, Client

Hawkins Partners, Inc worked with the Office of the Mayor and Metro Public Works to transform a historically and civically significant corridor in the downtown area which serves as a physical connector between the city/county courthouse and the state legislative arm of government. 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 north to the ambitious Music City Central, presenting an opportunity to re-envision the street itself.

Deaderick Street sits within the Kerrigan Basin, one of Nashville’s Combined Storm Sewer (CSS) basins, that has historically been subject to overflows., it is Nashville’s first implementation of LID features in the public right-of-way, the first green street in Tennessee and one of the first green street applications in the southeast. The renovations to the street primarily focused on addressing stormwater issues and urban trees.  Pervious surface within the right of way was increased by 700% through the use of rain gardens, pervious concrete and .bioswales were implemented in pedestrian bulbs at the intersections.  The site design worked within the context of the existing street and the existing storm drainage system, retrofitting existing storm drains to serve as overflow only. Rain gardens and bioswales were designed with engineered soils to allow infiltration and planted with plants, including many natives, that are adaptable to the extremes of wet and dry conditions. Based on Nashville’s historical rainfall patterns, infiltration rates and variable design factors, it is estimated that over 1.2 million gallons will be removed from the CSO system on an annual basis through this three block urban street..

In addition to the stormwater aspects of Deaderick, a number of other sustainable features were incorporated into the street, including LED lighting, recycled steel site furniture, crushed concrete as base aggregate material, fly ash for concrete and solar powered parking meters.


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Categories : Green Street, Hawkins Partners, Public Space, Streetscape, Sustainable Site Strategies

NIMFY: Not In My Front Yard

6 01 2010

I recently came across an article in the Portland Tribune titled “Neighbors Fear Swales Plan” and was surprised to learn that there was a group of neighbors on 44th Avenue and Seymour Street in Portland, Oregon opposed to a proposed green street near their homes. With so many great examples throughout the City, I erroneously thought all citizens welcomed the enhanced environmentally friendly streetscapes. Well as I continued to read, not everyone is pleased with them. Their concerns ranged from feeling it was not cost effective, to increasing congestion, to creating hazardous waste sites in their front yards. Based on the article, the real crux of the issue seemed to be a lack of communication. I am sure there is more to the story and I hope to interview someone from Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) in the near future to learn more about their green street initiative. The situation as characterized by the article underscores how important it is to include public involvement in any project. Despite its many benefits, green infrastructure is no exception.

Continued monitoring and research is critical to the adoption and improvement of new technologies. As new stormwater techniques like green streets are employed, dispelling citizen’s fear with facts about their effectiveness and making the case they are a cost-effective techniques as compared to more conventional approaches, goes a long way for wider acceptance.

-Brian Phelps


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Categories : Green Street

Opportunities

9 11 2009

Are words necessary?

curb and gutter

green street


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Categories : Green Street, Streetscape, Sustainable Site Strategies

Deaderick Street’s Transformation

28 10 2009

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.

Deaderick_Street_3

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

Deaderick_Street_4

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%.

Deaderick_Street_1

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


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Categories : Green Street, Pervious Pavement, Public Space, Streetscape, Uncategorized, Urban Planning & Design, Water Harvesting

Nashville’s First Green Street Opens

21 10 2009

deaderick_street_opening_3

Jim Snyder, Metro Public Works and Kim Hawkins, Hawkins Partners
present graphic panel to Mayor Karl Dean.

deaderick_street_opening_1

View of Streetscape During Event

deaderick_street_opening_4

View from Public Square to Legislative Plaza

On October 8th, Nashville’s first green street opened with great fanfare. Mayor Karl Dean, Kathleen O’Brien (President and CEO of the Tennessee Peforming Arts Center), and Billy Lynch, the Director of Nashville Public Works Department, spoke at the street’s eastern terminus in Public Square. The celebration also included music by Decca Records and SONY/ATV artists One Flew South, featuring Grammy Award-winning composer Marcus Hummon, and Transit, a band formed by Nashville MTA employees. A recording of the event has been posted on Metro Nashville’s website. (Link)


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What SHOULD be green about our city’s infrastructure?

19 10 2009

green_infrastructure

Green. These days that one word has many different meanings. Growing up, I could count on “green” being one of the eight colors in a Crayola package, but today, this one word has many more connotations. Being landscape architects, we plan to use this blog as a way to explore “green” in terms of site sustainability issues, with a focus on green infrastructure. So maybe we start with the first question: What SHOULD be green about our city’s infrastructure?

When we think about stormwater infrastructure, it is generally conceived of as the complex system that accepts, stores, manages and treats our stormwater. In the conventional designs of the past several decades, this has been done through drains, pipes, curb and gutter and a whole host of devices to hold or detain the water from our bigger storms. With green infrastructure, we look at the potentials of natural systems to deal with those same issues: more interception of stormwater allowing it to evapo-transpire, infiltrate and be held and used for others purposes (like irrigation or flushing water for toilets). This reduces the load on our aging storm pipe system, allowing it to function longer AND it often allows a more cost-efficient solution for the life of the project.

Specifically here at Green Infrastructure Digest we’ll discuss green infrastructure as it relates to four primary areas:

  • buildings and structures/ green roofs and green walls
  • hardscape / pervious pavements and overflow inlets
  • landscape / bio-swales, raingardens, green streets
  • water capture and reuse / rainwater harvesting, greywater harvesting, passive irrigation
  • related site sustainability issues

Over the past 23 years at our firm, Hawkins Partners, Inc. landscape architects, we have had the opportunity to put this talk into practice having now designed over 500,000 s.f. of green roof, being involved in the first three LEED projects in the State of Tennessee (and many more since then) and incorporating many of these sustainable practices effectively in a number of different projects. We find that our clients like the idea of getting back to natural systems and putting dollars into aesthetically pleasing solutions that also deliver an environmentally sound and cost-conscious solution.


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Categories : Hawkins Partners, Sustainable Site Strategies, Uncategorized