The planned 2.7-mile Bloomingdale Trail and five linked parks — envisioned as an elevated pedestrian and bicycling corridor splashed with artwork and landscaping — will assume a new, overarching identity Tuesday when the multi-use recreation system assumes a fresh moniker: The 606.

The Trust for Public Land, manager of the project that will link four regenerating Northwest Side neighborhoods, will announce the label while presenting final project plans at a public meeting Tuesday evening. Construction on the $91 million public-private venture is expected to begin this summer, with the elevated trail portion to open for use by the fall of 2014. Artwork and other amenities will be added after that.

• Related

• 

  Bloomingdale Trail

• The Bloomingdale Trail project

• 

  From an abandoned railroad to a park

• Maps

• West Bloomingdale Avenue, Chicago, IL, USA

The 606 label represents something virtually all city residents share — the first three digits  of Chicago ZIP codes, which planners hope will connote unity and links among neighborhoods.

“It’s really a sign that the project can stand on its own feet as being uniquely Chicago — the fact is, it will be pure Chicago,” said Paul Brourman, CEO of ad agency Sponge and member of the Chicago advisory board to the trust. He organized the pro bono naming effort.

The numerical label also is meant to harken back to the path’s roots as a 100-year-old rail bed running through a once-industrial corridor. “It’s reminiscent of a train route,” said Beth White, director of the trust’s Chicago office.

The 606 will be the brand for the whole project, which also is envisioned as an outdoor education site for Chicago schools. But its component parts, including the Bloomingdale Trail, will retain their own names.

“We respect the trail for what it is, a trail, but now i’s part of something bigger, the way Cloud Gate and Lurie Garden are part of Millennium Park,” said Matt Gordon, director of naming and writing for brand consultant Landor Associates and part of the park project’s branding team.

A logo, in which the numeral’s circles interlink, aims to show the brand as “a connector of people, communities and ideas, and a connection back to the city” said Jennifer Harrell, owner of Wyville USA, who designed the logo.

The text style aims for a modern look, and something that reflects the “Industrial Revolution, the grit of Chicago,” she said, adding that “we’re talking about doing a three-dimensional structure in black iron or steel.”

The development of a project name came about to dispel confusion surrounding the trail, which will run atop an abandoned 16-foot-high rail bed that runs above Bloomingdale Avenue, which is about 1800 north. It stretches from Ashland Avenue on the east to Ridgeway Avenue on the west, linking Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square and Humboldt Park.

“Lots of people thought it was in Bloomingdale, Ill., or many times people would call it the Bloomington Trail,” White said.

Attracting corporate sponsorships was tricky, too, given that Bloomingdale’s is the name of a prominent retailer, which could dissuade other stores.

“There were questions raised in that arena too,” White acknowledged. The trust hopes to find a lead sponsor, as well as backers for components of the project.

Some marketing experts said the project should appeal sponsors, including health-oriented companies.

“You’re seeing parks, bicycling’s a healthy, outdoorsy type of thing,” said sports marketing veteran Bernie DiMeo, now head of public relations firm DiMeo Partners.

But some question the wisdom of retaining the Bloomingdale Trail as well.

“The 606 sounds cool, it has an obvious story to it,” said Tony Schiller, executive vice president of Paragon Marketing Group, a sponsorship and partnership marketing agency. “The Bloomingdale — what’s that?”

He also said it would have made more sense to engage a lead sponsor and bring the corporation into the naming process, rather than tacking it on later. “If you don’t integrate the brand into the name, it’s easy for the brand to go away,” he said.

The key, now, will be to come up with a strategy to integrate the corporate brand into the name, with various points of engagement, including media play, signage and special events, he said.

The project, which has been on the city’s wish list since 2004, has been put on a fast track by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with city departments overseeing construction of what will be part of the Chicago Park District system. The trust, along with Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, have been working to garner support.

The project has garnered $39 million in federal funds; $2 million from the park district; and as of early this year, $12.5 million in private donations including $2 million in leftover NATO summit funds, leaving another $38 million to be raised. The trust plans to announce progress on its fundraising later this summer.

kbergen@tribune.com | twitter@kathy_bergen

RANCHO CUCAMONGA – Residents who live in the northern portion of the city now can get ideas for fire-safe landscaping at Hellman fire station.

The Rancho Cucamonga Fire District recently introduced the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Safety Education Project at the station. Landscaping at the station is meant to demonstrate best practices for homes in the high-fire-hazard foothill areas above the 210 Freeway.

Landscaping at the station, including stones, mulch, and low-lying native plants, when placed around a home can create defensible space to keep flames away from homes.

“This will help homeowners better defend themselves and help us to defend them should a fire burn through the area like it did in 2003 during the Grand Prix fire,” Fire Chief Mike Bell said.

In addition, the Fire District recently announced a new warning program and RC Fire Watch. When a red-flag warning is issued to warn of high wildfire risk, the district will hang red flags at its stations.

The department also plans to deploy red-shirted RC Fire Watch volunteers on red-flag days and the Fourth of July to have “eyes and ears” out in the field as an early warning system for fire. Volunteers would also contact people entering mountain areas and make sure they’re prepared to go into canyon, mountain and wildland areas.

In a separate project, the fire department is working with Eagle Scout Jacob Fakhoury to identify fire-safe plants in the high-risk zones in

the foothills.

“I will be putting the signs near the identified plants just to help the community so we can help prevent fires as much as we can from destroying the community,” Fakhoury said.

Residents can get fire-safety tips and check whether their home falls in the Wildland-Urban Interface Area at rcfire.org.

Mary Peat, who lives in northwest Rancho Cucamonga, said a visit to the fire station has given her ideas on how to landscape her own backyard.

“I have a back section like this that I wanted to develop, and the landscape architect was able to answer some questions for me,” Peat said.

Peat had to evacuate horses when the Grand Prix fire swept through the area 10 years ago.

The 6,000-square-foot single- story Hellman Fire Station 177 opened on Jan. 24, 2012. A three-person crew staffs a paramedic fire engine ready to respond to fire, medical and rescue emergencies.

The station also houses a fire engine designed for response in the brush-covered hillsides in northern Rancho Cucamonga.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA – Residents who live in the northern portion of the city now can get ideas for fire-safe landscaping at Hellman fire station.

The Rancho Cucamonga Fire District recently introduced the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Safety Education Project at the station. Landscaping at the station is meant to demonstrate best practices for homes in the high-fire-hazard foothill areas above the 210 Freeway.

Landscaping at the station, including stones, mulch, and low-lying native plants, when placed around a home can create defensible space to keep flames away from homes.

“This will help homeowners better defend themselves and help us to defend them should a fire burn through the area like it did in 2003 during the Grand Prix fire,” Fire Chief Mike Bell said.

In addition, the Fire District recently announced a new warning program and RC Fire Watch. When a red-flag warning is issued to warn of high wildfire risk, the district will hang red flags at its stations.

The department also plans to deploy red-shirted RC Fire Watch volunteers on red-flag days and the Fourth of July to have “eyes and ears” out in the field as an early warning system for fire. Volunteers would also contact people entering mountain areas and make sure they’re prepared to go into canyon, mountain and wildland areas.

In a separate project, the fire department is working with Eagle Scout Jacob Fakhoury to identify fire-safe plants in the high-risk zones in

the foothills.

“I will be putting the signs near the identified plants just to help the community so we can help prevent fires as much as we can from destroying the community,” Fakhoury said.

Residents can get fire-safety tips and check whether their home falls in the Wildland-Urban Interface Area at rcfire.org.

Mary Peat, who lives in northwest Rancho Cucamonga, said a visit to the fire station has given her ideas on how to landscape her own backyard.

“I have a back section like this that I wanted to develop, and the landscape architect was able to answer some questions for me,” Peat said.

Peat had to evacuate horses when the Grand Prix fire swept through the area 10 years ago.

The 6,000-square-foot single- story Hellman Fire Station 177 opened on Jan. 24, 2012. A three-person crew staffs a paramedic fire engine ready to respond to fire, medical and rescue emergencies.

The station also houses a fire engine designed for response in the brush-covered hillsides in northern Rancho Cucamonga.

The spacious kitchen features granite counters, stainless steel appliances, large island with vegetable sink, double oven, custom maple cabinets and a walk-in pantry.

Steve and Jenny Ostroms’ home has everything any homeowner would want including gleaming hardwood floors and an upgraded kitchen with custom maple cabinets, a double oven and a large island with a vegetable sink. But there are extras, too, such as a sprinkler system, attic storage, two fireplaces, his-and-hers closets in the master suite. and room to park a boat.

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What’s that western scrub-jay doing, anyway?

An odd-looking western scrub-jay. Photo by Dave Strauss

 

Dave Strauss writes in with a question about this rather tall jay: “I have often seen and photographed western scrub-jays, but this one seems to have odd proportions. The head and neck appear large compared to the body. Does this look like normal variation, or does it appear to be unusual for some other reason? I thought it might be a hybrid bird.”

Good eye for unusual posture, Dave!

My first thought was: Now that’s an alert bird! Probably this animal is stretching itself out vertically to get a better overhead view of some potential invertebrate lunch on the ground

I checked with David Herlocker, of the Marin County Open Space District, one of our region’s best all-around naturalists. He confirmed my hunch: “I think your assumption is spot on – just an alert posture. I think scrub-jays can look positively human sometimes, something about the proportion of the head size and the neck (when extended like this). Of course, they’re corvids which means they are smarter than we are, so it’s easy to imagine some articulate internal dialogue going on in there.”

I like that! The intelligence of corvids (crows and jays and relations) comes up now and then in our work here. Our next issue has a feature on Butano State Park, where scientist Portia Halbert has been leading a couple of efforts to trick crows and especially Steller’s jays into not eating the eggs of endangered marbled murrelets, and convincing us not to leave food scraps that make the crows and jays more likely to stick around the forest.

On a more positive note, back in 2007, Judith Larner Lowry wrote a delightful feature for us on the Landscaping Ideas of Jays. Jays eat acorns but, more importantly, they stash them away for later. You can visit the new Oakland Museum science gallery and see a column of acorns — more than 4,000 of them — that represent a year’s caching of one bird. These bird’s have such remarkable memories for their caches that a scholar at UC Davis has set up extensive lab experiments to test them (we interviewed him in our 2007 piece “Finding the Stash“). But jays aren’t infallible, and that’s good for oaks. Some of the forgotten acorns go on to become trees. And that’s one way oaks spread across the landscape.

So next time you’re in an oak woodland, thank a jay. And next time you’re in the redwoods, be sure to pack out all your leftovers.

 

Nature news junkie? Get our weekly news digest!

Sometimes it can be as simple as offering a customer a bottle of cold water on a hot day.

It’s sometimes the simple things that help run a retail business like keeping the trash picked up, J.D. Boone recently explained outside his business, Dothan Nurseries.

Boone said it’s important to help make the customer’s visit to Dothan Nurseries a memorable experience. As part of J.D. Boone’s retail philosophy, he runs his business with a certain motto of sorts, “Perfect Plants. Perfect Place. Every Day.”

“It’s not just walkways and displays. It’s about making every single customer special. It’s about making it an experience as opposed to a place to just buy stuff,” Boone said. “We have people who come by once a week and just walk. It’s their release, they just want to walk and look at the plants.”

But Boone also said he’s learned a lot from his family, including his father, Bobby, who has been in the nursery business nearly 40 years. Bobby Boone owns and runs Buds N’ Blossoms Nursery and Landscaping, located on U.S. 431 in north Dothan, with his wife Rhoda.

Sacrifice

J.D. Boone said owning Dothan Nurseries has helped him understand the sacrifice it took for his parents to run their own business as he grew up.

“It’s helped me understand it’s one thing to work at a business, but it’s another to own and run a business,” J.D. Boone said. “I understand now what a big sacrifice it is. I’ve got two little boys, and it makes it even more clear.”

But J.D. Boone said that’s not the only thing he’s learned over the years from his father.

“He’s helped me learn not to get all worked up about employee issues,” J.D. Boone said. “He’s been running his own business for 40 years and I’ve been running mine for almost 10 years. It’s nice to have someone to go to for advice not even nursery related, but just business related.”

J.D. Boone said he’s learned how to run a business, including how to be smarter about buying inventory to sell in the business.

“I encourage him to shop,” Bobby Boone said. “If you can buy right, you can sell right.”

But his father said the feeling is mutual.

“I’m 62 years old, and I’ve reached that point where I feel like I’m learning more from him than he’s learning from me,” Bobby Boone said. “He’s just a wealth of new ideas. We do a better job of retailing because of him.”

In the Beginning

Bobby Boone’s wife’s father started the business on U.S. 431 North in 1972. In the early days of the nursery the total annual sales for Buds N’ Blossoms Nursery and Landscaping came to around $60,000.

Boone worked at the Farley Nuclear Plant, but when his wife became pregnant with J.D. he started working at Buds N’ Blossoms. In 1974, Bobby and his wife took over the nursery.

“It wasn’t a big place, it was actually pretty small,” Bobby Boone said. “We hit it about the time people started landscaping more. We’ve just gradually grown it.”

Bobby Boone said he and his wife purchased the land on Montgomery Highway that formerly housed Wayside Gardens and the Bama Drive-In Theater before that. Bobby and Rhoda Boone changed the name to Dothan Nurseries.

A phone call one day left Bobby and his wife “overjoyed” to find out their son planned to move back home to Dothan with intentions to work with them at the family business.

J.D. Boone grew up in Dothan, and moved away to attend college in South Carolina where earned a degree in finance. He came back to Dothan and worked with his father in landscaping for about a year.

“I like plants, but I love retail,” J.D. Boone said.

Bobby Boone said there are many advantages to the family running similar businesses owned by different people and different locations. He said Buds N’ Blossoms generally has an 80 percent focus on landscaping and 20 percent focus on retail plant sales.

“We can exchange information, and you surely don’t mind sending customers to your son,” Bobby Boone said. “I can’t call my competitors and ask them what to do, but it’s nice to have a son I can call on for advice.”

Bobby Boone said running a similar business with his son has also helped them both expand their customer base.

“It works good being separate businesses. We get all the benefit, and none of the junk or bad stuff,” J.D. Boone said. “The bottom line is we’d both make a lot more mistakes were it not for each other.”

http://www.bnbgardencenter.com/

http://www.dothannurseries.com/

Maroon 5 on The Today Show

Check out Adam Levine and Maroon 5 performing live on Friday, June 14, 2013.

The big, green metal-roofed building along Southeast Stark Street still gleams in the sunlight and the big rock fountain in front still bubbles with water.

But there are few plants outside and what’s left inside will be gone by the end of the month as Drake and Lynn Snodgrass close the garden center that has been in their family for several decades.

Drake’s 7 Dees will keep a smaller store purchased five years ago on Southwest Scholls Ferry Road in Raleigh Hills. And its busy landscaping and design business will remain headquartered on 1.5 acres behind the garden center at 16519 S.E. Stark St.

But the couple, prominent in Oregon politics and charitable activities, will lay off 12 employees June 30 and try to find another use for the garden center’s buildings on 2.5 acres.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Lynn Snodgrass. “Drake and I love east Multnomah County … we’ve been here and invested our personal and business lives here.”

Although a series of wet springs and a sour economy hurt all nursery-oriented businesses, Lynn Snodgrass said, the garden center could not overcome the demographic changes in the Rockwood area of west Gresham.

“Garden centers thrive on home ownership in a five-mile radius, and there’s just not enough here anymore to sustain us,” she said. “There’s just a different spending pattern with apartment dwellers.”

When Bob and Meryle Snodgrass opened the center in the early 1960s much of the surrounding area was undeveloped, and their business grew as east Portland and Gresham filled with single-family homes. Drake Snodgrass bought the garden center from his parents in 1974 and expanded into landscaping.

But during the past 15 years, the area has changed dramatically. Apartments, many of them subsidized, abound. Original homeowners aged and moved on, selling or renting their houses. The city of Gresham has declared much of the area “blighted” to qualify for urban renewal programs.

Social programs in the area are generally overwhelmed by demand or underfunded. Gangs prowl the area; two shootings — one fatal, the other involving 30 shots — recently took place at apartments two miles east of the garden center.

“We appreciate what Gresham is doing and the area is revitalizing, but it’s going to be a long time and just not soon enough for us,” Lynn Snodgrass said.

With a regional clientele and 25 employees, Lynn Snodgrass said Drake’s 7 Dees Landscaping is healthy and growing. The question will be figuring out what to do with the 6,000-square foot garden center building they designed and constructed in 2001.

“We’re open to ideas, and we don’t want the property to sit vacant,” she said. “We’d like to keep it in retail because that may be best for the community.”

Lynn Snodgrass, 62, served in the Oregon Legislature from 1994 to 2000, including two sessions as House speaker. She is considering ramping up her outside activities.

Drake Snodgrass, 63, is on the boards of a low-income medical clinic in Rockwood, the Japanese Garden, the Portland-area Salvation Army and was recently given a community service award by a national landscape organization.

“The stress and sadness of closing the store is hard,” Lynn Snodgrass said. “But change can bring new ideas and energy. You have to try to look at change in a positive way.”

–Quinton Smith

 

More than 3,500 square feet and sitting on 1.7 acres, this house located at 3109 Valley Drive offers gracious living style and a country like setting right in the middle of the city. The house is currently listed for $417,500. The house is grand from the road with a curved drive that wraps across the front of the home and an end load three-car garage concealed from the curb. The house looks like an enchanted cottage with its combination of brick, stucco and varying pitched roof lines. It almost looks as if it were added on over the years, but I’m quite sure it is all original as built in 1980.

The front door leads into the grand two-story front foyer complete with curved wall, winding stairs and all the grandeur of yesteryear. Immediately to the right of the foyer is the formal living room, which measures 14-by-21-feet. The end wall features a beautiful fireplace, and windows in the front look out over the yard and drive. The living room leads into the formal dining room with wood parquet flooring and a built-in side server and glass front cabinets above. The dining room measures 12-by-15-feet.

A door on the back side of the foyer leads to the back of the home, which includes the family room, kitchen, informal eating area and screened porch that spans across the back of the house. It offers the most magnificent view of the sloping landscape and a beautiful brick outdoor patio as well. The 14-by-17-foot family room features ceramic flooring in a hardy terra cotta color. There is a fireplace and wet bar area as well as built-in bookcases. The family room is open to the informal eating area, which is divided from the kitchen by an island and cabinets above. The kitchen and eating area measure 13-by-22 and has a good flow with a large built-in pantry. The formal dining room also can be accessed from the kitchen.

The screened porch is simple by design and features a concrete floor, ceiling fan and a full wall of closable louvered windows that face the back of the property and overlook the brick patio and low brick wall surrounding it. At the end of the kitchen is a good sized laundry room that measures 5-by-17-feet, complete with cabinets, sink, place for the washer and dryer and an abundance of storage cabinets as well as a built-in fold down ironing board. The garage is nicely finished with a raised walk area around the inside and a nice storage room on the back side with double doors leading directly into the back yard – perfect for lawn mower, yard tools and the like.

To the left off the front foyer is a nook in the curved wall that leads to the master suite, and what a suite it is! It is complete with its own private bath and an abundance of storage closets. You would never lack for storage in this house! The master bedroom is large, and measures 14-by-22-feet. The space for the bed is symmetrically framed with windows on each side as well as a large almost floor to ceiling window on the back of the home. The master bath includes both a tub and shower, and with a little updating could be a show-stopper.

Up the grand staircase to the second level are the three other bedrooms. To the far left is the blue bedroom, which measures 14-by-18-feet. The room is unique with the angled ceiling and niches here and there and the closet space is amazing – a full wall of closets. This room has its own private bath. The second bedroom is in the middle of the upstairs and measures 11-by-14-feet. Set up with a corner of bookshelves, this room would make an excellent home office, or even a sitting room for the third bedroom, which is adjoining through the second full bath upstairs. The third bedroom is on the far right and measures 14-by-18-feet. Closets on both sides of the hall are an unexpected surprise, and again gives all the storage one would ever need. There is even a walk-in storage room tucked in that both Lori and I thought would be great for holiday decorations.

The basement is unfinished but is neat and clean with poured walls and extremely high ceilings. There is also a half bath in the basement giving you a total of 3 full baths and 3 half baths through out the house.

This is a beautiful property – unique and certainly not a cookie cutter house. Although in need of a little cosmetic updating, the house has good bones and could be a show-stopper with a little work. The land is beautiful – 1.7 acres filled with beautiful trees shrubs and a rolling landscape.

For more information on this home or to arrange for a private showing, contact Wayne Crosby of Re/Max of Midland at (989) 832-0090.

He said, she said

Kevin says: What a storybook house – beautiful home and beautiful setting. This house just goes on and on and is large, but really has a nice homey feel to it, and it takes advantage of the beautiful lot with views out the windows that are just breathtaking. It is very private and secluded. Now there is the wallpaper situation, but that is minor – just use your imagination and visualize what the house could look like, and roll up your sleeves and get to work! This house is only 33 years old and with a little interior work here and there could be a showplace. The exterior is really just picture perfect already. The house looks to be in great condition, the landscaping is just beautiful, and that brick patio in the back is just waiting for some great outdoor furniture, grill and fireplace and you could call it home.

Lori says: Kevin and I were going crazy with ideas while touring this beauty. There is so much to this house and certainly lots to be updated. But the bones and charm are all there. We actually gasped when we walked into the house — not at the wallpaper — but at the grand impression that the circular staircase to the second level and the foyer itself makes. The view from the wall of windows across the family room and kitchen area shows off the fantastic expanse of property (the red maple (acer rubrum) is beautiful!) behind the house. Just off the back of the house is a charming red brick patio surrounded in part by a red brick wall (both are in good shape).

ABOUT THIS HOUSE

TYPE OF HOUSE: 2 story traditional

ADDRESS: 3109 Valley Drive

PRICE: $417,500

LOT SIZE: 1.70 acres

SQUARE FEET: 3560

YEAR BUILT: 1980

BEDROOMS: 4

BATHROOMS: 3 full, 3 half

TAXES: $ 9,273

SCHOOLS: Carpenter, Jefferson, HH Dow High School

ADDITIONAL FEATURES: central air, security system, sprinkler system

LISTING AGENT: Wayne Crosby – Re/Max of Midland

Copyright 2013 Midland Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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