Poor drainage affects us all—even American presidents. At Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a potent combination of water intrusion and freezing winters damaged the Avenue of Flags walkway and deteriorated the inside of the park’s visitors center.
Designing a Lasting Visitor’s Center for a National Monument
In rehabilitating the visitor facilities for the National Park and upgrading building components to be more energy efficient, the historic monument aims to provide a lasting location for quality visitor experiences. Outside the facility, designers developed a new pavement system to better manage drainage and resist deterioration from the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle. With this Otak led design, the result is a safer visitor experience that reduces operating costs and, like the presidents’ sculpted visages, will last for years to come.
In providing a gateway to the several prominent breweries located in this area, the Lincoln Avenue bridge is the focal point of the design reconstructing East Lincoln Avenue from Willow Street to Lemay Avenue in Fort Collins, Colorado.
A Bridge Designed for Safe Passage to Downtown Businesses
The asymmetric, two-span structure is 195 feet long and 65.5-feet-wide. In reducing structure depth for hydraulic and path clearance purposes, the bridge uses side-by-side concrete box girders. The plaza on the north side of the bridge creates an urban parklet while pergolas and benches were designed as places to meet and relax. Brick pavers add to the sense of space and irrigated planters act as bollards to provide additional safety. Otak (as Loris and Associates) provided the bridge design for this improved corridor and community connection.
After Colorado’s 2013 flood, the state received funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service Emergency Watershed Protection Program to address extensive damage to homes, businesses, and road infrastructure.
A Reconnected Floodplain and Restored Stream to Mitigate Future Flooding
During the flood, high sediment loading quickly plugged undersized culverts at road crossings and caused threatened life and property. Improvements included floodplain reconnection, restored riffle-pool and step-pool sequencing, offset protection at critical assets, bank stabilization, and native revegetation. Public stakeholder meetings facilitated discussions with property owners, completed 1D and 2D hydraulic modeling, and provided sediment transport analyses to meet technical design and floodplain permitting requirements. This project has made the area much safer for its residents, with resiliency protections, reduced flood risk, and stream health improvements. The river will perform better during future floods with reduced damage and faster recovery time. Working closely with Lefthand Watershed Oversight Group and property owners, Otak led the analysis and design for this high-visibility project and provided construction support.
As the “Entrance to Aspen,” this stretch of Hallam Street (SH 82) from North 7th Street to the Castle Creek Bridge was designed with pedestrian and bicycle improvements.
Multimodal Improvements Led By Community Outreach
The multimodal design replaced a sidewalk with a multi-use path, raised pedestrian crossings, improved bus stops, widened the sidewalk on the bridge, and added a pedestrian guardrail on the bridge. The pedestrian and bicycle improvements required a new roadway cross-section that included asphalt pavement, concrete pavement, and curb & gutter, as well as removing and replacing the asphalt pavement on the Castle Creek Bridge. It was critical to preserve existing trees, improve drainage, provide for snow storage, increase pedestrian safety, and provide landscape screening. We collaborated with the City of Aspen on a public outreach program that included public meetings, one-on-one meetings with property owners and stakeholders, and a “living lab” in which the City placed temporary barriers along the corridor and allowed the public to get a “live” experience of how the improvements would look and feel.
As a multiple-benefit diversion project, the reconstruction of Godfrey Ditch aims to reduce sediment transport disruptions, improve maintenance requirements, limit damage potential in future floods, enhance aquatic and riparian habitats, and enable fish and safe recreational boating passage—all while delivering the full decree of water. Based on an initial study of interactions between water and sediment within a 20-mile segment of the Middle South Platte River, engineers and geomorphologists reconfigured the Godfrey diversion in order to restore longitudinal sediment continuity, thus improving disparities in sediment transport through the reach.
Geomorphic Study Informs the Design-Build of a Diversion Structure Replacement
Located on the Middle South Platte River in Weld County, Colorado, the replacement of the Godfrey Ditch Diversion structure is a design-build project completed in partnership with Naranjo Civil Constructors and in close coordination with CPRW and the Godfrey Ditch Board. After a comprehensive alternatives analysis with project stakeholders, the selected alternative involving moving the point of diversion upstream 350 feet to a more stable location and replacing the nine-foot failing structure with a three-foot-tall bladder dam structure, fish passage ramp, and increased efficiencies in ditch infrastructure. In leading the geomorphic study and throughout the project, the Otak team coordinated closely with DOLA (to ensure the proposed design meets the goals of the funding grant), landowners (to coordinate concerns regarding an adjacent parcel with a stringent water court decree), the Godfrey Ditch Board (to address their concerns regarding sediment minimization/maintenance and to ensure they will be able to divert their full decree), and local/state/federal agencies (to ensure permit requirements were being met).
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
