SE Division/Main Street Green Street, Portland, Oregon
At the urging of neighbors and business owners, the Portland Bureau of Transportation initiated a public involvement and planning process for streetscape improvements on SE Division Street between SE 11th Avenue and Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard (39th Avenue). Known as the SE Division Street Green Street project, it was completed in October 2014.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation hired NNA Landscape Architecture to lead the design team developing the streetscape master plan. We led an extensive public involvement process with the surrounding neighborhood, city bureaus and business community. The community-identified goals included creating a successful main street, enhancing community and sense of place, promoting pedestrian safety, balancing the needs of bicycles, buses and cars, and accommodating stormwater runoff.
Once we completed the streetscape master plan, we continued to work during the engineering phase to develop final landscape construction documents. As part of the engineering design team, NNA played a significant role in integrating stormwater elements with the streetscape design, providing the public with updates, working with property owners to select plants for their street frontages, coordinating tree species selection, and coordinating placement and planting details with Urban Forestry and Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services.
Early on, we identified public art as a critical element for promoting a strong sense of place. NNA worked with the Regional Arts and Culture Council to select the artists, Crystal Schenk and Shelby Davis. The husband-and-wife team developed the concept for "This All Happened More or Less," a public art installation featuring 14 bronze sculptures celebrating the everyday people who live and work in the community.
