(Updated) Parks Planner Stumps For Semi-Flawed Waterfront Design
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
Out of nowhere, David Yamashita, a planner for Portland Parks & Recreation has a commentary in today's Portland Tribune on the City's plans for Waterfront Park:
The first master plan for the park, unveiled more than 25 years ago, envisioned a place for a variety of active and contemplative activities. Downtown has changed considerably since then -- and, as a result, the park also must change to meet current and future needs.
The new master plan focuses on three major goals: to bring more life to the park throughout the year, to increase views and get people closer to the water, and to strengthen the park's connection to downtown.
The master plan is the work of Portland Parks & Recreation and a 16-member committee that spent 18 months studying the park and its future. The City Council approved the plan last spring.
Long-time readers here will remember I wrote about this plan back in May, where my main criticism was that part of the plan which would replace the stretch of the park from Salmon Spring to Morrison with an artificial grass-less "all-weather" surface.
This plan was approved by City Council that same month, in a hearing which featured "almost no discussion of the plans for an all-weather surface in part of the park" but did include some conflict over just what sorts of events would best characterize the park's identity under the new plan.
Returning to Yamashita's commentary, he writes:
The success of the park, home to more than 20 events a year, and the success of downtown have always been intertwined. It's now time to set the bar a bit higher, to carry out a new vision for a city that is not afraid to change.
Of course, with all the various plans and proposed plans Portland has generated just in the last two years, one would be hard-pressed to label the City as afraid to change. But the nature of those changes isn't something that simply should be swallowed wholesale.
There are several aspects of the plan that perhaps are worth pursuing. Improvements to the "bowl" (where many concerts take place) seem interesting and at least worj consideration, for example.
And I do have a soft spot for proposed development in the area of the park around the Ankeny Pump Station, especially if that area manages to find a new home for Fire Station #1 (seemingly dependent upon the outcome of in-fighting amongst the Naito clan) and can find the means to construct a public market there.
But there's no evidence that Portland is somehow afraid to change, and that semi-allegation shouldn't be used as some sort of weapon in some strange attempt to shame the City into accepting the entirety of a Waterfront Park plan which has at the very least one serious anti-park flaw.
Update
For what it's worth, as part of a just-announced package of $2.5 million in Federal funds "for a variety of projects" including transportation improvements and items related to the South Waterfront development, the City will receive "$100,000 in funding for planning and preliminary engineering" related the developing a public market "which would be a year-round indoor facility showcasing the bounty of the Pacific Northwest and the Portland metropolitan area." This does nothing, of course, in terms of siting such a market down around the above-mentioned Ankeny area, but it does help keep the idea of such a market on the table.
November 28, 2003 at 02:37 PM
Speaking selfishly as a SE resident, I have to say I would like to see a little less re-icing of the "Center City" cake (The North/South Park Blocks, the Mid-Park Blocks mall controversy, Washington Park, and Waterfront Park). As far as I am concerned, I am still in the "Center city" when I am standing on Mt. Tabor looking out at Mt. Hood. Nevertheless, in the specific instance of Waterfront Park, I do understand it is analogous to a football program at a Division I school--it brings in the cash and therefore will receive a lion's share of care and feeding dollars.
Now, for my druthers, I would like to see the City show some real imagination and anchor all this talk of Central Eastside redevelopment with a visionary park plan beyond the Esplanade. Establish a 21st century version of Hawthorne Park to incent the streetcar folks to do something more than build a feeder line between the Marriott and the Convention Center. Nearly a century after Hawthorne Park was abandoned, the stretch it once covered (between SE Taylor and Hawthorne and SE 9th and 12th Avenues) is exactly the kind of location that needs the re-invention Yamashita wants to inspire for Watefront Park:
"It's now time to set the bar a bit higher, to carry out a new vision for a city that is not afraid to change."
For the moment, let's set aside the question of whether astro turf is a responsible design element from a fiscal perspective. And I am sure other people can suggest other alternative sites, perhaps better ones, that would present the citizens of Portland and beyond with tremendous benefits.
IMHO, the real issue is this: in the past year, we've seen plans to change the downtown transportation plazas, Waterfront Park, Riverplace, and North Macadam/Tramland. If all of these projects proceed, the first question is will downtown be navigable over the next ten years? The second, more pressing question is does the downtown really need constant reinvention? At this point, it strikes me that anything claiming to be visionary for Portland needs to by definition take the conversation beyond the familiar topics and targets of the last 30 years.
Cheers,
Tom