| Project Rating: |  |
| Project Snapshot: | An affluent suburb rediscovers its historic downtown and tames two major traffic streets with great street design. |
| Project History: |
The town of Oswego was established where early industry began near the end of the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s. A local iron smelter was the first built west of the Mississippi, and later, concrete and power plants were built where Oswego Creek joins the Willamette River. But by the 1900s, industry took a back seat to Oswego's emerging identity as an affluent suburb to rapidly growing Portland, just 8 miles by trolley. By the 1960s, the town had grown to include an expanse of elegant homes and country clubs clustered around the the lake. The town's name had changed, accordingly, to the present Lake Oswego. But the historic downtown was rapidly fading, and continued to decline into the early 1980s. Among the problems downtown were ill-designed highway "improvements" along State Street (Oregon 43) and "A" Avenue that succeeded only in isolating downtown from the surrounding community. The City of Lake Oswego attempted a number of revitalization efforts to jump-start their downtown, but it was the creation of the Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency (LORA) in 1986 that made the difference. The East End Redevelopment Plan (download PDF version) was adopted that year, and set the stage for an ambitious renewal of several block of the historic downtown, and an adjoining area of heavy industry fronting the Willamette River. Projects included in the East End plan range from housing and commercial redevelopment to a marina, boardwalk, lakeside park, excursion trolley to Portland and numerous other capital projects. The Street Beautification and Improvement projects in the East End plan read like a cookbook for how and what to do in a typical main street reconstruction project. The opening statement in this part of the resolution reads: "Street beautification and improvement are needed to upgrade the visual image of the area [and] establish a sense of continuity to overcome the visual fragmentation which currently exists" Rarely does a community make this simple observation in establishing a new vision for their main street. This mission statement for streets was backed with a straightforward menu of specific projects that set the stage for the work that has now transformed "A" Avenue and other streets in downtown Lake Oswego. And as the gallery below illustrates, these street improvements are the truly backbone for redevelopment of the properties that surround them. |
| Best Ideas: | The list of high points in the "A" Avenue project design and adjacent approach streets is impressive. Among the best features are well-designed sidewalks, pedestrian-friendly street intersections and the overall attention to other pedestrian details. Other highlights include an extraordinary number of public art installations, gateway monuments, carefully selected landscaping and street trees and a strong pedestrian linkage between "A" Avenue and the newly-developed Millennium Plaza Park, which overlooks the lake. This project is a laboratory on how to create a sense of place in a struggling downtown through street design. |
| Worst Ideas: | None! Even on adjoining (and aptly named) State Street, which is owned by the Oregon DOT, Lake Oswego is pushing forward on community-oriented design features that few locales are able to achieve on state-own routes. |
| Contact Information: |
City of Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency (LORA) 380 A Avenue, P. O. Box 369 Lake Oswego, Oregon 97034 (503) 635-0270 web: www.ci.oswego.or.us/ e-mail: public_affairs@ci.oswego.or.us |
