St. Helens, Oregon, is a growing community of over 13,000 people located 30 miles north of Portland. After years as an industrial hub, two wood product industries closed, leaving behind acres of brownfields abutting the Columbia River. The City of St. Helens (City) and its residents recognized the opportunity to reimagine the waterfront as a multi-use community asset and an RFQ was issued in late 2020 to begin the transformation with two projects: the South 1st and Strand Streets Road and Utility Enhancements and the St. Helens Riverwalk projects, both of which Otak will be working on.
The Otak team is leading the South 1st and Strand Street project and is a sub-consultant to Mayer/Reed for the Riverwalk project. As developers eye the riverfront location and offer visions for its future, the City and the Mayer/Reed-Otak team intend to address the transportation and infrastructure gap by connecting
Improved infrastructure and roadway connectivity will help guide future development of St. Helen’s riverfront.
the Columbia River Highway (OR 30) to the Riverfront District, as well as better connect pedestrians and bicyclists to existing roadways, trails, and the waterfront. The work will provide numerous road and utility enhancements and multimodal connections. Public water extensions and looping, sanitary sewer and storm drainage, and the relocation of the existing sanitary sewer lift station are all critical components that will help attract developers as the area begins to transition from industrial to mixed-use.
Running parallel with this project is the design and engineering of the St. Helens Riverwalk Project, which will include the design and construction of a boardwalk, overlook, and multi-use paths to maximize pedestrian connections. Mayer/Reed is leading this project overall, but Otak is managing the design for the replacement of an existing stage area with an amphitheater that can host community concerts and events and serve as a gathering area.
Representing Otak on both of these projects is Project Manager, Keith Buisman, and Project Coordinator, Mandy Flett. Otak has a single team working on both projects in tandem and the ability to coordinate a team in-house that has the wide array of skills and experience needed for the project was instrumental in being selected for this work. Every discipline in Otak is being tapped from planners to surveyors, architects to engineers. Revitalizing this riverfront aligns perfectly with Otak’s mission to create communities where people can live, work, and play.
“Planners came in first and provided an idea of what could be done with the parcels and how to lay them out for future development,” Mandy says.
The utility and roadway design and the design for gateways and pedestrian facilities are underway and expected to be completed this coming fall. Construction management will then follow and is tentatively scheduled to wrap up in 2023.
“Our work is to create a sense of ‘there’ in a town that has so much potential. We want to make it a destination for those who live there and also for visitors. When you enter the City, the river draws you in and we want to take advantage of that,” Mandy comments.
King County, in Washington, is situated within a natural watershed, home to various native fish species, including Coho Salmon. Restoration and preservation have become a priority focus across the region with salmon runs declining due to loss of habitat, barriers to fish passage, and poor water quality. For cities like Burien, with sensitive Coho salmon-bearing creeks running directly through them, there is an urgency to address water quality and pollution from stormwater run-off.
Public works projects need to balance multiple priorities against available funding and budget restrictions. So, when Otak was hired by the City of Burien (City) to do the final design of a stormwater retrofit at Moshier Park along Miller Creek, the team took a multi-disciplinary approach. The goal was to resolve a complex set of issues and provide maximum benefit in conjunction with other planned park improvements.
Addressing Untreated Stormwater Runoff, Flooding
Miller Creek, a natural waterway for spawning Coho Salmon, crosses through urbanized areas and ultimately discharges into the Puget Sound. Due to the amount of untreated stormwater runoff draining from the creek basin, the health of the creek is greatly degraded and conditions are poor for supporting the aquatic habitat. In addition, localized flooding and erosion along the creek’s banks have resulted from existing vegetation being converted to impervious or less pervious surfaces.
Moshier Park is a 15.2-acre public park that features lighted athletic fields, a community arts center building, and a large parking lot that is also used by Highline High School for events at Highline Stadium. The park was identified as an area for a stormwater retrofit project, funded in part by the Washington Department of Ecology, which would have the highest benefit value to Miller Creek.
Balancing Priorities, Maximizing Opportunities
While the project’s primary objective was to retrofit Moshier Park to provide stormwater flow control and runoff treatment, Otak saw the greater opportunity to incorporate other park improvements the City wanted to complete. Otak project engineer, Tyson Hounsel, explains that “by packaging some of the other park improvements into the design and construction timeline, we were able to save the city both time and costs. Plus, through all of our teams—survey, architecture, landscape architecture, water and natural resources, and engineering—we could develop a comprehensive design that includes the stormwater facilities, as well as a synthetic sports field, and a new restroom and concessions building at the park.” Otak also aided in obtaining the necessary environmental permitting and will act as the construction manager to oversee the retrofit and park improvements through completion.
One of these key improvements will be converting the large asphalt parking lot to less-impervious surfaces and installing an underground water detention tank and treatment facility that will capture stormwater runoff. Interpretive signs will also be installed in the park, which will be used by the neighboring high school as well. The project will break ground later this summer and is slated for completion in 2022
In the end, the City will have a newly designed and updated multi-purpose park that, as Tyson states, “will be a real community center.” Miller Creek will also benefit from improved water quality and will provide a more hospitable environment for spawning Coho Salmon.
The design of a bridge reflects not just a path over an obstacle, but also the joining of two areas of land that are separated. For Otak’s designers, the 2nd Street Avenue bridge in Lyons, Colorado, had a third purpose, which was to put a community back together after it had been devastated by the 2013 floods.
The previous bridge was heavily damaged by floodwaters and debris.
When the floods hit, water beat on the bridge for several days and a fallen log hit one of the key structural supports. Flood debris covered the bridge’s piers causing water to infiltrate the town’s wastewater treatment plant, destroy a storage building and equipment used by the town’s Public Work Department, and damage a downstream bridge. Eventually, the damaged and unsafe bridge took away the connection between the town, two housing subdivisions, a church, a school, a park, and a recycling center.
Otak was hired by the town to do emergency repairs to the bridge and to design the new structure. Zak Dirt was brought in as the contractor. Various engineers worked on the project throughout its lengthy design process, with Otak’s Structures Group Manager Dan Beltzer finishing out the job. “We had a great team to guide this work. The design really shows how simply rebuilding isn’t always enough. This bridge was built back better as a sustainable structure that will last well into the future,” Dan says.
The new single-span bridge is 139 feet, crossing the St. Vrain Creek. The design was approved in the fall of 2019 and construction started in 2020 with a cost of about $4 million funded in part by FEMA with assistance from the Colorado Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief program. The new bridge was built six feet higher than the original structure, to convey the 100-year storm event to allow for future floodwaters and debris to safely pass under it. It was also built to withstand a 500-year scour event. Dan says scour is the number one reason bridges collapse.
A ribbon cutting celebrated the new bridge and memorialized the town’s former engineer.
The project was unique in that it was the first bridge in the state to use the Colorado Department of Transportation’s new Bulb-Tee concrete girder shape. “Colorado’s new standard provides more girth, which allowed us to further minimize the required bridge depth as compared to the previous standard – which helps the hydraulic conveyance while minimizing the required raise in roadway grade. The new standard became available very late in the design process and none had yet been built. In fact, only one fabricator had the ability at that time to construct the girders. Still, pricing and learning-curve concerns gave way to the design benefits.” Dan comments.
A ribbon-cutting was held on July 8 to celebrate not just the completion of the bridge and one of the last FEMA flood recovery projects in the community, but the resiliency of Lyons. Dan says the ceremony also stood as a memorial to Jim Blankenship who served as the town’s engineer for over a decade, and worked with Otak on several projects, including the Main Street Reconstruction project, which won the APWA Colorado’s overall Project of the Year award. The event drew dignitaries, such as Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper, Congressman Joe Neguse, and Lt. Governor Primavera. The officials touted the ability of not just Lyons, but of any community, to build back better and ensure a safer future.
Enacted in 1968, the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (WSR Act) has safeguarded rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values. The WSR Act also provides a framework for river use planning and management by federal and state agencies. As we celebrate National Rivers Month, Bill Valliere, Otak Research Analyst and member of Otak’s new Visitor Use Planning & Management (VUPM) team reflects on how his group’s work is aiding comprehensive river management plans and protecting national rivers.
While the team itself is new, their body of work is not. For example, Bill, and Steve Lawson, VUPM Director, have been working together on and off since 1999 on issues surrounding visitor use, management, and planning for outdoor recreation spaces—specifically with regard to how many people can visit natural places without either the experience or the resources being degraded. “Steve and I first met and worked on a project in Yosemite National Park that was eventually part of the Merced River comprehensive management planning. It was a very controversial, and complicated procedure, but it was ultimately successful,” Bill states, “More recently, we’ve been working with the U.S. Forest Service on some of their rivers that are in need of comprehensive river management plans.”
Otak’s VUPM team is dedicated to analyzing, modeling, and planning for visitation levels and patterns within the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, national parks, protected areas, and a wide variety of buildings and public spaces. Bill and the rest of the team offer a specific set of skills and expertise that public agencies typically do not have on staff but are critical to effective planning and use management. In the case of wild and scenic rivers, the VUPM team will be able to help ease a backlog of work.
Every river that is designated as a wild and scenic river needs to have a comprehensive management plan within three years of designation. Bill points out that “some of those rivers have gone beyond the three years and the Forest Service is trying to make up ground on the backlog of rivers that need to have these plans in place.” In this regard, the team will work primarily on the portion of those plans that deal with visitor use management and visitor capacity, providing key data on how many people specific river corridors can accommodate without degrading the wild and scenic designation values.
Photo simulation used for a study on the Merced River.
Through various studies, the VUPM team estimates the numeric capacities required by law. The team does not stop there, though. “We also provide strategies and tactics that managers may use to actually reduce impacts to the resources and potentially increase capacity,” Bill states. Trail design, access points, and other river features are brought into consideration with specific recommendations. “It’s a balancing act and we are often weighing different aspects of the river itself and the corridor to figure out where that capacity should be drawn from. A river may be designated because it holds a variety of outstandingly remarkable value, including recreation, wildlife, geology, or hydrology—there are a variety of values for which a river may actually be recognized. And those are the values we have to protect or improve upon.”
The capacity portion of the management plans is often a challenging part of the planning process for a given wild and scenic river. As one of the few firms providing visitor use and planning services of this nature, Otak is uniquely positioned to fill the gap with the expertise of its VUPM team who have been solving capacity and land use issues for more than 20 years. Bill and the team are excited about the work they are now able to do together and the impact they can have helping to protect our conserved spaces. “We want to help these land use and planning agencies be able to get those plans done so that they’re in compliance with the law and better manage the resources for present and future generations.”
When a historic fire season raged through Oregon in the fall of 2020, no one could have imagined the forest fires would raze entire communities to the ground. Particularly hard hit were the small towns and rural communities like those in the Santiam Pass and along the McKenzie River east of Eugene. Rebuilding will take considerable effort and time.
Otak has a long history of working with rural school districts managing bond programs and capital improvement projects and has developed relationships with school principals and super- intendants (often one and the same in smaller districts). So, when the McKenzie School District (MSD), which serves 220 K-12 students, was caught in the fires, it struck home for Stephen Wasserberger, Senior Project Manager at DAY CPM, an Otak Division.
“Just driving through there is mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling,” Stephen stated when describing a recent visit to the area. “And then as you start to get to the areas where the residences are burned and all the buildings are gone, it’s just heartbreaking.”
Destruction Outside the Scope of School Bond
The MSD was already seeking approval of a 15 million dollar bond when the forest fires came through, leveling many homes, businesses, and community centers. The McKenzie High School lost the grandstand to the football field, a storage building, and a concession stand—structures outside the scope of the bond, which means any replacement funds are going to come from insurance money, FEMA, and state emergency grant money. With an understanding of replacement values and insurance, Stephen knew it was going to be a struggle to replace the structures, let alone fully fund new structures with updated designs and materials to match current building codes and standards.
The site of the grandstand before fire engulfed it.
“This is when I knew we could help. We could help the district get things off the ground and if we did this work pro-bono, we could save the district considerable costs, and really make a difference,” Stephen stated. “This is a community that’s been completely traumatized. They lost about four hundred homes. Teachers lost their homes. Obviously, students and families lost their homes. So stepping in to help was about doing the right thing, supporting a community, and supporting people who are in a really bad spot.” This goes to the heart of what Otak is about and the work the firm does transforming communities, so it was no surprise that Stephen was able to garner support for a pro bono project from his team and the rest of Otak.
Reconstruction: Otak and Contractors Stepping up to Help
For the past two months, Stephen has been acting as Owner’s Rep for MSD on the reconstruction project, working with district leaders guiding them through the whole design and construction document process, as well as cost projections and funding, and securing contractor bids through an RFP process. Stephen has also taken the time to dive into various aspects of proposed designs, working with Soderstrom Architects and contractors to keep costs down while delivering new structures that will best serve the district and the community. Many of the contractors involved in the project had personal ties to the community and they were eager to be involved. Soderstrom, who has also provided pro bono work on the architectural plans for the grandstands, had already been working with MSD to provide facilities assessments for the bond.
The next step is garnering all of the necessary permits to begin construction. Although Lane County has waived permit fees, the process still takes time. Completion of the new grandstand, storage shed, and concessions stand—all of which will be constructed of non-combustible materials—is projected for the fall of 2022. For a small community like McKenzie, that day cannot come soon enough. “They want their grandstands back,” Stephen expressed. “Sports is a galvanizer and Friday night football is part of the community. It brings people together and in a time where, you know, things aren’t so great, it’s a positive thing. Giving the kids and the families a chance to get out, to just do something fun—every community deserves that.”
We will chronicle this journey as work progresses along with feedback from the community. Stay tuned for the next installment.
At the junction of Wall Street and Hunziker Street in Tigard, OR sits a parcel of land offering access to nature, sweeping views, and close proximity to public transit. While originally zoned for commercial development, the City of Tigard, local residents, and the Washington County Housing Authority had other ideas. The developer, DBG Properties, also saw the greater opportunity—one that answered both housing and commercial needs—and together with Otak’s vision, addressed the concerns of the existing 40-year-old neighborhood.
The opportunity lay within how the property was to be divided. The majority of the 17 acres had been zoned commercial with a mandate of being able to provide 280+ jobs, however, a portion of the property had been set aside for residential development. When Otak was brought into the project, the plan was to build office space along Hunziker Street and push the residential development to the back of the property, however, the housing project was to be developed first.
“Knowing that the office piece was not going to be developed right away, we decided to bring the residential to the front of the property and pushed all the office to one big piece in the back,” states Matt Neish, Otak Senior Project Manager. The rearrangement had two key benefits. First, it allowed for a bigger piece of the property to be commercially developed with either a couple of office buildings or one larger building. And because of the necessary road extension, the address would be on Wall Street. “Now, who doesn’t want to be on Wall Street?” Matt asked.
Second, with the housing situated in the front of the property, there was a greater opportunity for creating something special for residents that would be integrated into the steep hillside, taking advantage of the abundant nature, and sweeping views.
There were challenges, of course, the steep hillside, being one of them. The bigger challenge, though, was gaining approval from the residents of the long-standing neighborhood community immediately adjacent to the property. “The residents werevery entrenched and organized in what was happening around them and they were initially opposed to the development,” Matt said. Increased traffic and overflow parking on the neighborhood streets were top concerns. There was also a negative connotation around the concept of affordable housing.
Collaborative Approach Leads to Positive Outcome
With this understanding, Otak took a collaborative approach working with the residents, the city, and the developer to come up with solutions that met all the stated concerns as well as the primary objectives for the property. As Matt explained, gaining the trust and approval of the residents began with the first neighborhood meeting. “When we first presented the project, we were careful in our use of the term workforce housing versus affordable housing. We knew affordable housing is not always well received into existing neighborhoods. Workforce housing, on the other hand, represents an annual median income around forty thousand dollars, and tends to be more positively received.”
Otak’s approach to the Field’s project was nothing new for the firm and is standard practice for the integrated teams who are accustomed to creating solutions to complex situations. Ultimately, Otak was able to bring all of the project’s ambitions into one cohesive design that met the needs of all parties involved. “By the time we got to go before the planning commission, we received unanimous approval of the design and we were able to get the buildings permitted,” Matt said.
Blending into the Scenery
Adding to the complexity of the project was the geography of the site itself, which is situated on a steep hillside. In the end, though, it was the hillside that led the team to creative design solutions that ultimately appeased the neighborhood residents. A key decision was to cut into the slope so that all the units could have daylight. As Matt explained, “We went through a couple of different iterations and ended up with four-story buildings, three of which have bridges to an upper parking area,” He added that “the views this site offers are just amazing, and because the site keeps sloping down, even the first floor buildings are going to be higher than anything that will be developed next door.” According to Matt, any commercial development will most likely be single-story, concrete, industrial-style buildings.
An added benefit to cutting into the hillside was that it allowed the housing development to have a lower profile, which was appealing to the adjacent property owners. The completed project also includes a green roof on the clubhouse, further blending the development into the hillside, and surrounding trees and nature. “We actually had to put a fence up because otherwise the deer that are still on site would jump from the hillside onto the roof and eat the vegetation!” Matt exclaimed.
The final design also maintained a one-hundred-foot buffer along the eastern property line that backed up to the neighboring homes, many of which were completely open without fencing of any kind. “The homes simply backed up onto this treed hillside that had been there for forty years, and the homeowners felt like they were losing that,” Matt said. The buffer helped to preserve a good number of the trees and the natural setting for the property owners.
Providing Connectivity
One of the city mandates was to make a connection from the adjacent neighborhood, onto and across the property, and ultimately connect to future development to the west. The developer was also directed to ensure that connection would then continue on down to Wall Street. The city also wanted to put in a sky bridge connection from the site over neighboring rail lines, which are used by both freight and the West Side Transit system, to a trail system on the other side that eventually connects to the Tigard City Hall and Library. As Matt stated, “in addition to preserving the views and surrounding nature to satisfy the neighborhood, the design also had to be centered around walkability and connectivity.”
In the end, the Otak and DBG Properties were able to deliver an affordable housing development that met the multiple mandates by the City of Tigard and the Washington County Housing Authority but also overcame the objections of the neighborhood. With 264 units of mixed one, two, and three-bedroom units geared towards families, sweeping views, a clubhouse integrated with nature, and a walkable trail system connected to neighborhoods and urban transit, The Fields is an example of what modern affordable housing can look like. It is also an example of how a collaborative approach working with the community can lead to innovative solutions and positive outcomes that benefit all parties.
DuBois Park is a mature residential neighborhood filled with single-family homes that date between the 1950s and 1970s. The neighborhood was named for the 3.5 acre DuBois Park that is an integral part of the community. The City of Vancouver Parks and Recreation Department, as part of its Master Plan, identified the need to renovate the park for safer and better use by the residents. In early 2019, the City contracted with Otak to participate in the public engagement sessions to gain insight into priorities for the residents and then to design the park, and oversee construction.
David Haynes took on the dual role of landscape architect and project manager and said while he worked closely with the project manager for the City, Otak was given free rein for the design. “We were very cognizant that the ideas we developed needed to work with the City’s long-term maintenance capabilities,” David said.
Otak and the City hosted two public meetings as open houses at the park site. The City and Otak’s project managers co-led the events with the City discussing background processes and funding sources, while David introduced design concepts and implementation. The first meeting was to gather ideas from the residents and the second was to show them the design concepts that came out of the meeting. “We developed options of how the park could be laid out and talked about the pros and cons of each. Residents chose to mix and match different aspects that they were shown and we put those results into a final plan,” David said.
David added that Otak was committed to addressing comments and concerns, which, in one case, resulted in setting the basketball court a couple of feet below the surrounding grade to help attenuate the noise of bouncing basketballs.
In the final version, Otak designed an improved playground, a loop trail around the perimeter of the park, an irrigation system to feed the new lawn areas, and a trellis as a gateway attraction. One distinctive feature is an embankment around the swingsets consisting of large boulders that kids can climb over. “The City project manager relied on us to select and place boulders. He was uncertain about how it would come together but was pleased with the result,” David said.
The Otak team has a fondness for park projects because they are viewed as foundational to a strong community and allow for plenty of creativity that a design team relishes. “That’s what planning and design are about—creating neighborhoods that people enjoy living in. Park projects are powerful in creating a sense of community,” David reflected.
The park had a soft opening in December 2020 and there are plans for an official ribbon-cutting this spring.
Skyview Station in Salmon Creek, Washington was an underutilized, light industrial site that sat amidst a fast-growing community. Hurley Development saw an opportunity to turn this piece of property into a retail center to serve the local population. To accomplish this goal, Hurley realized the need and importance of an experienced and sophisticated consultant who could handle the development complexity and myriad permits required. Hurley turned to the Vancouver office of Otak, and the leadership of Tim Leavitt, PE, Regional Director of Civil Design.
Otak’s multi-disciplined team of planners, surveyors, engineers, and landscape architects offer the experience and depth to efficiently solve the site challenges and design a project that was readily approved by the presiding agencies. “We offered our client recent experience with another project adjacent to this site, as well as solid and collaborative working relationships with the numerous agencies having jurisdiction here,” said Leavitt, who also served as the Otak Project Manager for the Skyview Station project.
Projects like Skyview Station, located in unincorporated Clark County, required coordination with multiple jurisdictions.“This was a real team effort. Agency staff were supportive and proactive. The permitting process was quite constructive, from start to finish,” according to Leavitt. The labyrinth of permitting included reviews and approvals by Washington State Department of Transportation, Clark Public Utilities, Clark Regional Wastewater District, Clark County Fire District #6, and Clark County.
Permitting was one complexity. The other challenge was the existing conditions. One access point to the commercial center is from the NE 139th Street overpass, constructed and owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). This overpass was constructed on Geofoam, a nontypical foundation system that allows large and heavy structures to be constructed in undesirable soil conditions (e.g., wetlands). Otak’s structural engineers, civil engineers, and the geotechnical engineer-of-record designed an access ramp that ensured the new improvement would not impact the complex overpass foundation system and would be acceptable to WSDOT. Another existing conditions complication was the site elevations, which dropped over 20 feet across the property. To ensure accessibility and flat building pads, Otak’s structural engineering team designed a gabion retaining wall along the eastern property line, with heights ranging from 2-18 feet.
The project received final agency approvals in December 2019. But…it wasn’t quite time to begin construction. In lieu of a new signalized intersection at the main site entry, Clark County Public Works and Transportation requested that Hurley instead consider a roundabout improvement. Hurley agreed, and after the execution of a Development Agreement, Otak was asked to design a roundabout and related site and frontage improvements.
As Leavitt described, “The footprint of a roundabout is larger than a signalized intersection. Our initial challenge was to locate and design a roundabout that did not impact neighboring properties and minimized impact to the Skyview Station site layout. Working closely with Clark County transportation staff, we quickly solved that challenge, and moved forward with the permit documents.”
Although approving of the change in plans, Hurley wanted to minimize the design and permitting timeline for the roundabout improvement. Otak was ready for the challenge of bringing together a complex change under a tight timeframe. With agreement from Clark County, regular update meetings occurred to review the design advancement and address comments, questions, and concerns in real-time. “This public road improvement is extremely important to both the County and Hurley, so the attitude was “all hands on deck”, said Leavitt.
Otak’s in-house development professionals enabled a quick transition to the new design and permitting effort. Design efforts were led by Phil Hymas, PE (roadway), Scott Nettleton, PE (structures), Rose Horton, PE (stormwater), Brad Swearingen, PE (site engineering), and David Haynes, PLA (landscape architecture). All told, 15 Otak professionals dove into this project headfirst and worked together to bring the project to fruition, resulting in what will be a vibrant new commercial center for local residents, as well as an important local improvement to the public roadway system.
The newly constructed City Hall and public building in Lake Oswego, OR is redefining the way the city engages with its residents. With transparency and a welcoming public interface acting as the guiding principles behind the building’s design, Lake Oswego is following a growing trend among municipalities across the US and abroad.1 A trend that embraces the concept of multi-purpose public buildings, and city halls in particular, as community hubs where the public can more easily engage with elected officials and have better access to municipal services.
At the same time, Lake Oswego’s new public building is an example of Northwest regional style, engineering, and technology meeting the urgent need for improved public and employee health safety, energy efficiency, communications, and streamlined operations.
Providing Cost-effective solutions.
Lake Oswego’s previous City Hall, public services, and the police/911 dispatch center were housed in an outdated building constructed in 1987 with synthetic stucco. The building was deteriorating due to water intrusion issues and the ongoing maintenance costs were rising. The public interface was less than ideal with labyrinthian design and little open community space. Technology and equipment upgrades for the 911 call center were also needed. Renovating the existing building could have solved some of the issues, but in the long run, would have missed the greater opportunity to reduce operating costs, better serve the public, and offer more opportunities for community engagement.
When DAY CPM, a division of Otak, was hired by the City of Lake Oswego as Owner’s Representative, the options being considered at the time were to renovate the existing building or construct two new buildings to house the police department in one, and City Hall in another. Otak’s team, under the leadership of David Lintz, Senior Project Manager, took a collaborative approach working closely with city staff and leadership, as well as Mackenzie Architects and general contractor Howard S Wright. The team also solicited public input. After considering multiple scenarios and the cost-benefits of each, and weighing these against the city’s broader vision of creating a true community center, the third option emerged.
Rather than demolish the existing City Hall and police department building, a new energy-efficient building, that represented a Northwest regional style with modern amenities, would be constructed on the site immediately adjacent to the existing building. In addition to being the most cost-effective solution, leaving the existing structure intact during the construction of the new building allowed City Hall to remain open and the various departments, includingfinance, courts, planning, building, engineering, the city attorney’s office, public affairs, IT, and the city manager’s office, as well as the police/911 operations, to continue uninterrupted.
The new City Hall will open in March after all new furniture has been delivered, allowing city employees to enjoy a smooth transition into a fully operational new space with minimal disruption. Once the existing building has been vacated, it will be demolished, making way for a public plaza and additional public parking, which will be completed later this year in August. The new civic plaza will further establish Lake Oswego’s City Hall as a true community hub.
Improving health safety and energy efficiencies.
Health safety was a top priority from the start and the arrival of the pandemic in 2020 only served to heighten the sense of urgency. The new building’s design includes advanced air filtration throughout providing better air quality for building occupants and visiting public. Energy efficiency has also been greatly improved through the building’s engineering design, technology, and materials used, as well as the installation of solar panels and systems that will reduce operating costs.
Stepping into the future.
The new building may be a bold step into the future, but it is also steeped in practical solutions. The city has effectively reimagined City Hall into a multi-purpose building with an inviting public interface that also includes public common areas and a home for the city’s Arts Council and Booktique. The open gallery design, a break from traditional government building design, is welcoming to the public who now have greater access to the various departments and the people who serve the community. There are public-facing conference rooms and a large community room that can easily be partitioned off to accommodate court proceedings, or council chambers. Gender-neutral bathrooms have replaced traditional bathrooms, remaining in step with current societal norms.
The building design also takes advantage of the different elevations of the site. City Hall and the various city offices are accessible from the street level on A Avenue side of the building, while the Police Department, which sits on the lower level, is accessible from 4th Street on the opposite side of the building.
In the end, Lake Oswego’s new City Hall provides a much improved public interface, increased government transparency, and opportunities for greater community engagement. It is a welcoming space for citizens, elected officials, and public servants to come together in new ways to better serve the interests of the community as a whole.
With the opening of the 19th Street & 23rd Street pedestrian bridges in Boulder, the University of Colorado (CU) has not only created better ADA compliant connectivity between the campus and the surrounding community but now has an iconic landmark that will help define the campus’s identity for decades to come. These two innovative pedestrian bridges, designed by Otak Colorado’s structural team, in coordination with CU Facilities Staff and Design Review Board, are the culmination of engineering ingenuity and practical problem solving incorporating lessons learned as the first of the two bridges (23rd Street) was being constructed.
CU’s main Boulder campus is separated from areas containing student housing and residential neighborhoods by Boulder Creek, the Boulder Creek Trail, a riparian corridor, and a 30 to 60-foot-tall elevation differential. Otak was retained by CU to design two bridges at 23rd and 19th Streets, with a primary goal to provide ADA compliant, user-friendly connections, between the main campus and areas north of the creek. The design team was also charged with the need to integrate bridge design with the surrounding natural environment and provide a level of aesthetics commensurate with CU’s flagship university.
What the university envisioned was a “bridge through the canopy,” weaving pedestrians through trees and connecting them to the natural beauty and wildlife in the area, while efficiently getting them to where they need to go. These bridges replace steep pathways that required pedestrians to literally huff it up a lung-pumping 20% grade, which was difficult to maintain and dangerous during winter conditions.
The overall project involved the design and construction of the 23rd Street Bridge, completed in 2018, and the 19th Street Bridge, completed in 2020. Project manager, Dan Beltzer, P.E., in Otak’s Colorado office, oversaw the design of the two bridges, guiding the project from inception through successful completion. David Graff, P.E., served as the project engineer and oversaw the bridges’ construction. The two bridges offer practical solutions for pedestrian traffic, while also preserving the natural environment and wildlife along Boulder Creek—two primary concerns for CU. The two bridges were constructed sequentially, each taking about 10-months to complete; both were on time and on budget.
One of the unique aspects of the project was the progression of the design and engineering over the course of the two bridges. As they were constructed sequentially, rather than concurrently, the team was able to refine the design for the 19th Street Bridge and incorporate changes based on lessons learned from the 23rd Street Bridge. Since the design of the second bridge occurred during the construction of the first, the team was able to get real-time feedback and make modifications that would be better suited to the challenges of the second location.
For both bridges, the design team considered different alignments to find the optimum balance between cost, aesthetics, ease of construction and minimizing site impacts, especially along the steep and marginally stable hillside. As they were also charged with mandates to avoid significant tree removal, preserve historic rock walls, and create a path that was pleasing to the user, the resulting design essentially weaves across the creek and up the hillside through the abundant canopy of trees. Keeping the bridge at a height that is not overly tall and vertically imposing also steered the alignment.
To minimize fabrication efforts and construction costs, a series of identical straight 30-foot steel beam spans were designed at the maximum ADA compliant slope to climb grade as quickly as possible. Each pier provides an ADA landing that also serves as a turning point for the pathway to provide a sinusoidal effect, creating an overall curve shape out of a series of straight lines. The piers are supported by a single concrete column founded on either a caisson or a micropile foundation, depending on the terrain. Custom railings were developed using stainless steel handrails; weathering steel plates, pipes, tubes; and stainless-steel cables to minimize materials and limit obstruction to views of the natural beauty of the surrounding environment. The resulting effect has given the bridges a “light and airy” feeling and allows users to connect to the nature surrounding the bridge.
Bridge lighting is provided by LED lights mounted flush in the handrails that shine down onto the deck surface. This configuration directs light only towards the pathway where it is needed and minimizes glare into the riparian surroundings. Sensors at the ends of the bridges increase lighting intensity when pedestrians are present and dim lighting otherwise.
The 23rd Street Bridge connects the Buff Walk (the path between Folsom Field and the athletic center) to the Boulder Creek Path and Parking Lot 169, a popular tailgating area on game day. At the top of this bridge is a large landing that allows people to gather for game day activities and view the Flatiron formations west of the city and riparian corridor below. To provide an ample landing area atop the steep hillside, a retaining wall with high-density styrofoam blocks was used as backfill to reduce earth pressures and provide the necessary wall stability.
One key difference and a lesson applied from the 23rd Street Bridge to the 19th Street Bridge are the configurations of the pier landings. The 23rd Street Bridge incorporates thin concrete bearing seats for the bridge spans to sit upon, while the 19th Street Bridge provides a sleeker profile by eliminating this bearing seat and framing the bridge spans directly to the concrete landings via a steel landing connection frame. This configuration also allowed for easier fit-up of the bridge spans and railing.
Construction of the 19th Street Bridge also presented a unique set of challenges, different from the bridge at 23rd Street. The natural environment around both bridges is home to a plethora of wildlife, including foxes, deer, and numerous species of birds. In fact, the canopy surrounding the 19th Street Bridge has the highest number of bird species in Boulder County, so the design needed to also appease bird watchers. A large landing with a bench is included at the mid-point on the bridge to facilitate bird-watching or to just take a rest and enjoy the surroundings. The portion of the bridge spanning Boulder Creek also contains patterned markings in the concrete slab to celebrate the flow of the water below.
History played its part in the design process as well, presenting both preservation challenges and opportunities to celebrate the area’s past. A previous bridge crossing at the 23rd Street Bridge location was historic but had to be removed to achieve necessary hydraulic improvements. The historic masonry abutments were allowed to remain, and interpretive signage has been added at this bridge’s location so the community can see pictures of and read about the site as it once existed. Many historic elements are also visible from the 19th Street Bridge, including an old warming hut used when the area between Boulder Creek and the hillside would be intentionally flooded in the winter for ice skating. Historic stonework is also visible along the banks of Boulder Creek, placed there from 1938–1940 by workers associated with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program created by the Roosevelt Administration to give unemployed Americans the opportunity to help with public works. The stonework is easily observed from the new bridge, reintroducing pedestrians to these historic elements that were previously difficult to access and obscured from view.
Together, the bridges provide much-needed connectivity between CU’s main campus, the neighborhoods to the north, and the rest of Boulder via the creek path. But the bridges also provide the desired connection with nature and history. Pedestrians now have both a pathway to get to where they need to go and an opportunity to be immersed in the creek corridor’s wilderness along the way. In the end, Otak and CU were able to deliver two iconic bridges that will be a part of the University’s identity for generations.
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.
