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ThisWeek Community News

Wednesday October 9, 2013 11:33 AM

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Dublin is looking at art on a grand scale — 100 acres to be specific.

With improvements for the Interstate 270 and U.S. Route 33 interchange slated to start in late 2014, Dublin is looking at options to make the new ramps aesthetically pleasing and create a gateway for the city.

Like other public art projects, Dublin is seeking input from the community for aesthetic enhancements for the interchange that will cover an area of about 75 football fields.

“This is such a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our community to influence this design,” said Sara Ott, Dublin senior project manager.

For the project, Dublin has contracted with Maryland-based Creative Design Resolutions, a company focused on “the exploration and development of context sensitive aesthetic transportation design, an increasingly essential component of successful highway, bridge, and related roadway projects,” information on the company website said.

“We work with communities and project teams to develop site-specific aesthetic treatments that respect and engage the community’s history, values, and surrounding environment and architecture.”

Last week, the city started taking community input to give Creative Design Resolutions ideas for site designs.

“There are infinite possibilities that can be made into concrete, any type of relief sculpture,” Ott said.

“The imagery has many options. That’s why (Creative Design Solutions President Steven Weizman) is engaging with the community — to find a vibrancy that would be valuable to translate into the artwork.”

A focus group that drew 50-60 people was held Sept. 30 and the city began online queries Oct. 1.

Until Oct. 15, residents can go online and engage in feedback for the project at 27033interchange.org/signature-gateway. Questions focus on Dublin’s history, what makes the city great and points of pride.

The aesthetic enhancements will likely be limited to relief sculptures on the nine new ramps planned for the interchange. Plans for landscaping could also be includ-ed.

“The important part is it needs to be cost effective,” Ott said, adding a relief can be set into ramps as concrete is poured.

“You can pour it plain or do something to make it interesting… . With the site being 100 acres, that’s a lot of space to figure out where on that space is appropriate to add enhancements,” she said.

“That’s part of the assignment the Creative Design Solutions has been charged with. The aesthetics master plan takes advantage of dollars already being planned… .”

The aesthetic enhancements plan is being completed through a partnership between Dublin, the Dublin Arts Council and the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Creative Design Solutions has worked with departments of transportation across the country and will need approval from ODOT.

“We felt like (Weizman) has the skill set to deliver a signature gateway for the city,” Ott said.

Creative Design Solutions will use community input to create different ideas for the interchange.

“From those we’ll choose three ideas they want to fully work into designs to present to the community,” Ott said.

“They’ll be doing that throughout October and early November.”

Five years ago, Jovo Ivekich decided to leave his day job and start a landscape architecture firm that focuses on creativity and collaboration.

Since making that decision, Elements Design Landscape Architecture has built a reputation among those who want an emotional experience in an outdoor setting.

Elements’ most high-profile portfolio piece can be seen on the outdoor patio of the Iron Horse Hotel. “The Yard,” as it’s known, incorporates steel, a fire pit and other materials that symbolize the industrial theme of the hotel. 

After seeing “The Yard” and some of Elements’ other work, you wouldn’t dare call Ivekich’s work landscaping. He brings an expertise in everything from plants to outdoor furnishings into each project to tell a story unique to the project.

“We are landscape architects of the outdoor environment,” he said. “I call it a boutique for outdoor living because the services we offer are hands-on and design intensive.”

On Monday, Ivekich moved his design studio from the basement of his Fox Point home to an office above the new Erik’s Bike and Board Shop at 155 E. Silver Spring Drive.

Ivekich said he is excited to be get to know other people in the Whitefish Bay business community because he believes collaboration leads to success – a principal he carries over into his landscape architecture business.

Ivekich said he encourages clients to collaborate in the design process but also looks forward to guiding them through the many decisions they will have to make, from deciding on a general concept to deciding on materials, design specifications and bidding out contracts. 

Throughout the process, though, he believes it is important to involve the client as much as possible.

“I think the creative process needs to be more transparent and interactive,” he said. “I sometimes tell clients that they hold all the puzzle pieces, and I put the puzzle together. I’m trying to tell a story, and that story is based on the client’s vision.”

To learn more about Elements Design, visit the company’s website.

The corner on Ninth and Astor streets along the Columbia River had once been eyed as the site of the Garden of Surging Waves.

But upstaged by a collapsed block in the center of downtown near Astoria City Hall, the garden moved locations, growing larger with the inclusion of Heritage Square.

Little Astor Street park wasn’t needed anymore.

Left alone, it has now become home to the community’s transient population and some illegal activity.

Parks Director Angela Cosby plans to change all of that with a package of improvements. She received the go-ahead to do so on a 3-2 City Council vote Monday night. Council members Arline LaMear, Karen Mellin and Russ Warr voted in favor. Mayor Willis Van Dusen and Councilman Drew Herzig voted against it, with Herzig saying the public was left out of the discussion.

“A list of initial improvements were agreed upon,” City Manager Paul Benoit said, “include cleaning up existing landscaping, adding natural grass turf, irrigation and picnic tables. And with the council’s approval, parks staff would like to start making these initial improvements, and work on agreements with interested parties to adopt that Ninth Street park.”

Adopting the park, he explained, would mean businesses could volunteer to maintain the park throughout the year.

Money is available in the budget for the improvements, he added.

Cosby, along with the parks board, recently held a public meeting in which each attendee was given gameboard “cash” to spend on their priorities for the park.

“I was at that meeting that Angela led and it was really exciting. There were 23 people there, a good cross-section of the community, all stakeholders, all people that were interested,” Mellin said. “She had a very creative way of having us decide which of the items that we wanted to have installed in this park and did it with Monopoly money so we had to put our money where our mouth was.”

She said she wholeheartedly supported the project, to make the park “an enjoyable place to be.”

Herzig argued that the meeting was only for “shareholders,” however, and although he supported the park improvement he would not support what he felt was a lack of a public process.

“I am concerned that we really haven’t had a public presentation on this,” he said. “I would like us to delay a vote on this until the parks can do a public presentation. I know I contacted city staff that this was not a community event, this was an invitation to stakeholders and it got posted on Facebook. So people got involved, but it wasn’t deliberately said to the people of Astoria, ‘These are our plans for the park. What do you think about that?’”

LaMear said it was advertised through other means.

“It was in the paper. People were invited to come, and I thought it was a great meeting,” she said. “There were people there who were not on any kind of special list. They just were regular citizens that showed up. … I think it was advertised and the people that were most interested showed up.”

Van Dusen asked Benoit if a presentation would be possible. He said any presentation wouldn’t be much. “We can put the same thing on the next agenda, but we’re talking about grass, irrigation and benches. Very, very simple maintenance kind of work.”

Van Dusen also asked Cosby what the negatives would be of waiting. She replied the weather could be a factor in delaying it, because the grass needed to be planted before the heavy rains set in.

“We had a park there and the City Council, and the parks department long before Ms. Cosby was here, and we put in a park there that was not very popular,” Van Dusen said of his reasoning for voting no. “All of a sudden, people showed up and saw it and I would hate to repeat a mistake. And the mistake is that we didn’t have enough public process.”

George “Mick” Hague spoke in favor of the project.

“I’ve been talking about Ninth Street for more than a year,” he said. “Ms. Cosby has come on this year and has done an excellent job of pulling together people, and coming up with ideas. I hope the city will follow through on her suggestions.”

Hague suggested the donated artwork given to the city by 85-year-old Massachusetts sculpture Stanley Marcus should be placed in the park. A suggestion box on the first floor of City Hall for the artwork’s placement is available for public input.

“If we clean it up,” Mellin said, “people will treat it with much more respect.”