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Changing the face of the city
It’s not too early to be thinking about the Sandy Mountain Festival, only two months away. This year’s Festival will mark some significant changes for many of the 50,000-60,000 visitors who come to Sandy only once a year.When they look up, they will have a much less obstructed view of the sky, as a result of the project that is moving most utility wires underground. Work continues in 2008 in a Sandy Urban Renewal project to move most downtown overhead wires underground, to replace sidewalks, and to complete "streetscape" improvements on Proctor Blvd. between Meinig and Scales Avenues. The streetscape improvements will include brick-accented sidewalks, curb extensions for pedestrians, historic street lights, "business-friendly" (columnar) street trees, benches, and planter barrels. But the centerpiece, and to some the crowning glory, will be Hoffman Plaza, the city property at the corner of Pioneer Boulevard and Hoffman Avenue, designed to be Sandy’s version—albeit on a smaller scale—of Portland’s Pioneer Square. The $150,000 civic project, under construction now, is expected to be completed well before the Festival, turning what is now an open, grassy lot into a plaza paved with permeable concrete and decorative pavers. The property, acquired by the city from the Chamber of Commerce, has long been used for the Saturday Farmer’s Market and for the Music Fair and Feast during the Mountain Festival. The plaza will continue to be used for these activities. Construction is actually being accelerated to make sure it is ready for the Festival. City Manager Scott Lazenby said wide sidewalks will border the square along Pioneer Boulevard, and paths will wind around the property. Interlocking dark red pavers will cover most of the area, with standard concrete colors interspersed. “A smooth path will go along the north side, by Prestige Printing [and the office of the East County Gazette], toward the Historical Museum on the east side of the Plaza,” Lazenby said. Since the east side of the property is elevated several feet above the west side, the area lends itself naturally to an amphitheater-like seating area, consisting of three elevations of steps, three feet by one foot. Facilitating these changes in elevation will be various paths not requiring stairs, although two sets of stairs on the east side will connect with the museum parking lot. “The whole project is designed to be ADA-compliant but not skateboard-friendly,” Lazenby said pointedly. The southern boundary along Pioneer Boulevard will feature four pedestrian “period” lights and three trees described as “business-friendly.” A large landscaped area will grace the north side, and four planters in a row along the eastern edge between the plaza and the museum parking lot. Low-level bollard lighting—a dozen lighted posts—designed to be both pedestrian-friendly and compliant with Sandy’s “dark skies” lighting ordinance will run along the eastern and northern edges of the plaza. Lazenby said the plan had envisioned a visitors’ shelter, a gazebo, and trellises, but was changed to avoid deflecting attention from the real centerpiece of downtown: the museum. Plumbing and electrical connections are being installed underground for a potential water feature, probably a fountain, on the southwest corner and a restroom on the northeast corner. Lack of funding may delay these additions for some time, but Lazenby said the City hopes to be able to complete them in time for Sandy’s centennial celebration in 2011. To those who might object to the project in view of funding problems for such worthy objects as the library and the health clinic, Lazenby stressed that funding for the plaza comes from already reserved urban renewal dollars, an economic development tool that provides cities and counties with funds to redevelop and recover communities. Oregon Revised Statute Chapter 457 gives each city and county the ability to activate an urban renewal agency with power to propose and act on plans and projects to remove “blight.” Examples of blight include buildings that are unsafe or unfit for occupancy or the existence of inadequate streets. As part of forming the urban renewal district, the city of Sandy froze the assessed property value for commercial areas in the city in 1998. “Any growth in the value of commercial areas goes into the urban renewal district,” Lazenby said, until the city has made $5 million in improvements—initially paid with bonds. Essentially, the urban renewal district intercepts funds that would have left the city and reroutes them back into redevelopment, increasing property values. Urban renewal funds have been used for such activities as public parking lot immediately south of Pioneer Boulevard, utility wire undergrounding and streetscape project currently in process, and the actual purchase of the property from the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce in 2006. Lazenby said the plaza improvements will exhaust the funds of the current urban renewal district. The city is considering whether to extend that district for additional downtown improvements. The sale agreement between the city and the Sandy Chamber provides for the continued use of the plaza for its Music Fair and Feast event during Mountain Days, and for the Farmer’s Market, which is provided for by four clearly established vendor spots built into the plaza. The Chamber has decided to delay the opening of the Farmer’s Market until after the Festival. Lazenby said construction of Hoffman Plaza might change the traditional Christmas tree lighting ceremony. “Right now we don’t have a plan for putting a tree in the middle,” Lazenby said, adding that the city would have to remove several pavers and install metal plates to hold the tree. “Those pavers are an essential special feature of the whole project,” said Engineering Tech Liz French, who has been very active in planning and communicating the development. “It’s exciting to me, that since they are permeable, none of the storm water will leave the site.” French brings a wealth of background experience to Sandy’s Planning Department. French is a graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and she is also a volunteer firefighter in Hoodland and a marathon runner. In recent issues of Downtown Sandy News, published regularly by the City of Sandy to inform residents of current and upcoming events, a number of frequently asked questions were addressed, concerning particularly the underground wire project. What about landscaping? The sidewalk areas on Proctor Blvd. between Meinig and Scales are getting a complete makeover, including the removal and replacement (with “business-friendly” trees and planter barrels) of landscaping. Why is concrete being poured around the old utility poles? Most of the poles on the north side of Pioneer and the south side of Proctor will remain: these are holding some high voltage line coming out of the PGE substation that can’t be buried. Most of the rest of the poles will go; the contractor is leaving a single panel of concrete to be poured when the poles are removed. Why aren’t the poles being removed now? The project must follow these stages: first the (empty)conduit and vaults must be installed underground; that is the work that is underway now. Then the utilities will install their cables, and where necessary, provide underground connections to buildings. Only after the underground system is completed and live can the overhead facilities be removed. Why is the contractor trenching, instead of using directional bores? Bores are being used for the highway crossings (primarily for electric service lines). But so many utilities are being buried (electric, phone, cable, lines for other telecom companies, and SandyNet fiber) that multiple bores would be required for the common trench. Not only would this be prohibitively expensive, but also the area under the sidewalk is so full that it would be a challenge to do this many bores with the required accuracy. Which wires will disappear? In an ideal world, all overhead wires in Sandy would be moved underground (all new development in the city has underground service). But Sandy has some historical constraints that make this difficult. High above Proctor Boulevard, PGE lines carry 57,000 volts, and the cost to bury these would be enormous. Several 13,000 volt lines leave the Bluff Road substation, providing primary feeder service to the area. These too are expensive to bury, and doing so would require ground-mounted transformers and vaults that would take up valuable downtown real estate. Most of the visual clutter, however, is caused by the various wires that cross Pioneer and Proctor Boulevards. Almost all of these will be moved underground as part of this project, along with the thick communications cables (phone and TV). A total of 78 wires crossing the streets will be moved underground, and the wires and poles on the south side of Pioneer and the north side of Proctor will be removed (with the exception of a few poles needed for guy wires for the PGE high voltage lines).  |
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