If you’ve ever been part of a Sustainable City Year Program class or been to one of our end of year celebrations, you know that students produce a huge volume of plans and proposals for partner cities. What happens after the school year – and the partnership – comes to an end? We’re always excited to see the ways our partner cities are able to take the next steps to make the projects they envisioned and that students spent many hours working on come to life. Right now, a few things are moving forward in our past partner cities.
Springfield, the SCYP 2011-2012 partner, is working to renew the Booth-Kelly site. During the partnership, students in Brook Muller’s architecture studio looked into different redevelopment options for this former lumber mill site. Now, Springfield is seeking $1 million in funding to turn some of these plans into reality. During that same year, SCI Co-Director Marc Schlossberg’s students worked on plans for bicycle networks in Springfield. Today, construction is nearing kick-off on the Virginia-Daisy bikeway with completion scheduled for next year.
“This type of partnership allows a city to partner with students and faculty to examine innovative approaches to existing projects, even those projects which have stalled due to a lack of resources or safe spaces to explore competing community interests or needs. The unique priority the partnership places on city staff involvement in framing the projects with students and discussing different community perspectives and variables means the final student projects and reports are both relevant within our community context and effective at creating real forward movement for the project, sometimes in small amounts, sometimes redefining leaps,” says Courtney Griesel, Economic Development Manager for the City of Springfield.
In Salem, plans are moving forward for an expansion of an energy facility at the wastewater treatment plant. This facility will capture methane and other energy sources produced during treatment and convert them to into energy to help power the plant. Students in industrial ecology helped develop plans for the facility – which will reduce pollutants including those that contribute to climate change – as part of the 2010-2011 SCYP partnership.
Architecture students were also hard at work during the Salem partnership to develop plans for a new police station. The police station project crossed a major hurdle last year by winning voter support for a tax levy that funds its construction. Other signs of the SCYP partnership take the form of recently-installed signage at Minto-Brown Island Park developed by students in landscape architecture and a new method to help recover costs of streetlighting that was approved by the city council following recommendations and presentations from students in Planning, Public Policy, and Management.
As past partners find ways to move forward with projects, SCI is seeking additional opportunities to support their efforts to turn plans into action. Last summer, SCYP Graduate Employee Kerry Edinger worked with the City of Albany to find ways for SCYP proposals to fit into the city’s budget and strategic plans. This summer, a similar effort will get underway with La Pine.