SCC eBulletin - Looking Ahead: Visualizing a Downtown Streetscape

November, 19 2012 - Volume 45, Issue 6

Looking Ahead:
Grassroots Ideas for Downtown Vitality, Transit and the Future of Salem

November 30-Visualizing a Downtown Streetscape

January 25-Public Transportation in the Salem Area: Facts and Myths

February 8-A Third River Crossing for Salem?

Beginning November 30, Salem City Club launches a new series that puts the spotlight on grassroots citizen ideas for a vibrant downtown and Salem area. Sometimes daring, often begging further critical examination and greater refinement, grassroots ideas are passionately proposed and can produce historic policy and actions that improve civic life and vitality.

The first of the series (Friday, noon, November 30 at the Willamette Heritage Center) will explore Salem Downtown Partnership’s vision of a new downtown streetscape.
The Partnership, comprising downtown business owners, proposes a remade downtown streetscape that combines a variety of tested and experimental innovations. Their plan is offered with the conviction that a vibrant downtown is the beating heart of the city and region.

Many will find the proposals intriguing and perhaps controversial. A proposed “road diet” would result in street lanes being removed in favor of wider sidewalks, outdoor seating, carefully planned gardens, and bike lanes. Low maintenance gardens are envisioned with design elements drawn from Salem’s noted Twentieth Century landscape architects Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver. These ideas, and others that presenters will share, are intended to promote the commercial health and general attractiveness of Salem’s downtown core to citizens and visitors.

Subsequent series sessions will explore findings and implications of a soon to be published League of Women Voters of Marion and Polk Counties report on public transit in the region, and ideas and alternatives to a third Willamette River crossing.

November 30-Visualizing a Downtown Streetscape Speakers:

Eric Kittleson
President, Salem Downtown Partnership

ERIC KITTLESON, current board president of the Salem Downtown Partnership, will introduce the project and explain the Streetscape design to the Salem City Club audience. Kittleson holds degrees in Economics and Electrical Engineering from Oregon Universities

In 1981, he joined his wife Carole Smith in purchasing and renovating four blighted downtown buildings including the Farrar Building on State Street, now owned by Arbuckle-Costic Architects; the Paulus Building on Court Street, now houses Lullu”s Kitchen store and Meringue and the Kittleson/Smith upstairs, family residence. The couple also renovated the Oddfellows Building on Court and High Streets that houses Grand Vines, the Grand Theatre and the Grand Ballroom and the Grand Hotel Building, home to Travel Salem.

Blake Bural
Architect, Arbuckle Costic Architects

BLAKE BURAL, an architect with Arbuckle Costic Architects in downtown Salem, will focus his presentation on how he envisions the project creating community pride and a sense of place and history. He also will explain the making of Court and State streets two-way, which will feature bike lanes.
Bural, who has a bachelor’s degree in Architectural Studies and a master’s degree in Architecture from Washington State University, serves on the leadership team for the Salem Area Young Professionals through the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects.

Susan Kay Huston
Garden Designer specializing in Lord and Schryver Garden restoration

SUSAN KAY HUSTON, who will discuss the sidewalk garden and the historic relevance of the design, is a noted, Salem garden designer for commercial buildings and is known for her restoration work in private Lord and Schryver gardens.
Huston, who holds a degree in art and art education from Willamette University, has also studied at the University of Oregon, the Institute for European Studies in Vienna, Austria and Western Oregon University.
Huston lived in Portland as a free-lance photostylist, designing and constructing large scale product shots for Northwest companies such as Freightliner Trucks, Georgia Pacific, Simpson Timber and Precision Castparts. She owned her own design/development business working with local companies such as Providence Hospital enhancing the physical exteriors of its buildings.

Please join us Friday, November 30, 2012, as we welcome this panel of speakers at Willamette Heritage Center at the Mill in the Dye House. For lunch reservations email rsvp@salemcityclub.com before noon Wednesday, November 28, 2012. Parking is free. Doors open at 11:30 AM. For more information on this program please go to www.salemcityclub.com