After a successful first term working on projects ranging from market alternatives for biosolids to ideas for downtown Albany’s Water Avenue corridor, students involved in the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program are continuing their efforts in Albany with nine Winter Term classes that are working on 12 Albany-identified projects. Projects range from outreach campaigns and civic engagement, site analysis of the Willamette riverfront, mapping of parks to analyzing the potential for passive solar heating on parks structures and evaluating owner-occupied and rental housing patterns. Students in the business school will also play a major role, providing proposals that target parks and recreations business assessment to strategic planning for community sports facilities. In mid-January, business students toured key parks and recreation sites in Albany. They also toured the St. Francis Hotel in order to evaluate the viability of this historic landmark operating as a hotel. The St. Francis is the lone survivor of what used to be eight downtown Albany hotels.

On the same day, landscape architecture students visited East Thornton Lake Natural Area. Albany purchased the 26-acre site in 2009, but development plans have been on hold. Students are focusing their efforts on concepts for a four-acre public park that expresses the natural and cultural history of the area. Albany staff are also traveling to the UO to share Albany’s history, culture and planning for the city’s growth.

Landscape Architecture Studio (LA 439) student site visit to East Thornton Lake Natural Area.	Business Strategy and Planning (BA 453H) student site visit to St. Francis Hotel.