Kenton Denver Avenue

Portland’s first green main street, the Denver Avenue Green Street extends along the four-block historic Kenton business district in north Portland. The initial phase of the streetscape design developed an overall concept for the street section, including the widening of sidewalks, addition of bike lanes, and the restructuring of existing parking, drive lanes and medians. The design developed through input from a Citizen Advisory Committee, a Technical Advisory Committee, and with extensive public involvement at open house meetings. GreenWorks, as part of a multi-disciplinary team, prepared an overall street layout for the corridor that defined paving patterns, materials, street trees, site furniture, ornamental light fixtures, and the design of gateways at either end of the corridor. An important component was the integration of green street stormwater solutions within the right-of-way. This project was completed on time and on budget.

Our initial design work moved successfully into a constructed streetscape project in 2010 with GreenWorks providing construction documentation led by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. As a main street and ODOT-designated freight route, we successfully integrated sustainable design with main street design to create a vibrant streetscape. Long suffering from a high storefront vacancy rate, the Kenton downtown now has experienced a boom in new businesses and its local economy.

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“And now in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic and the attendant economic crisis have walloped businesses, communities, and Main Streets across the nation, Denver Avenue is again going through a transformation. The Kenton Business Association, working closely with Portland’s Bureau of Transportation and Salazar Architect, have created #DenverAvePlaza – prioritizing parts of the roadway for outdoor commerce, dining, displays, and socially-distanced gathering. While the new plaza has gone through a couple of changes, the Business Association reports that “what has not changed is our determination to make the Plaza in whatever shape as safe and as enjoyable a space as possible.” This latest iteration of Denver Avenue clearly emphasizes the importance that public space has for us even in these hardest of times (and even if Paul Bunyan has to wear a mask).”

- SERA Architects, Summer 2020

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Tigard River Terrace & Design Guidelines

GreenWorks assisted the City of Tigard to develop a vision for the new main street in the River Terrace community. The new center spine of the community, which is parallel to and east of Roy Rogers Road, is envisioned as a boulevard that seamlessly integrates the River Terrace Trail into its design, provides safe and comfortable multi-modal travel options, and includes high-quality pedestrian-scale design treatments that define it as the neighborhood’s signature street. In order to successfully balance mobility with safety and comfort, it is important to control speeds along this street through a variety of design approaches that facilitate through travel but discourage cut-through traffic.

Residential parking and access needs were carefully considered during the design process, including, at a minimum, an evaluation of how any proposed parking and access would impact trail users, vehicular travel speeds and volumes, and subdivision design (e.g. block length and orientation of dwelling units). The overall design of the street will serve to enhance the neighborhood and the adjacent residences without being a barrier to those who will live on either side of it in the future.

St. Helens US 30 Corridor Plan

This large-scale planning project involves planning for both a state highway and main street urban streetscape. The goal of the Highway 30 project is to provide safe, convenient access to local businesses along the highway, while balancing that with state goals for traffic mobility. GreenWorks is providing design and planning overview for this project.

Sandpoint Downtown Streetscape

GreenWorks developed green street schematic design concepts for the City of Sandpoint, Idaho, which will serve as a green street pilot project for the City of Sandpoint. Concepts for these existing streets looked at different options for how to retrofit green infrastructure to work with different existing conditions and how the design would fit with the character of the neighborhoods. Some of many issues considered in the designs were preserving existing mature trees, ease of snow plowing operation, on-street parking, vegetated stormwater facility types and pedestrian circulation.

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Oregon City Warner Milne Rain Garden

As part of the realignment of Warner-Milne Road at the Molalla Avenue intersection, the City of Oregon City hired a team with GreenWorks to design a rain garden in a vacated portion of the right-of-way that will treat stormwater runoff from the adjacent heavily-travelled roadways. A series of large serpentine Corten steel fins meander through the site, articulating the stormwater channel and creating a striking contrast to the lush rain garden plantings. The first of its kind in Oregon, this rain garden incorporates prominent sculptural elements that highlight the City’s committment to sustainability.