Located on a former Boise Cascade industrial site, this 7.3 acre park adjoins 32 acres of new housing and commercial development and serves as the gateway to Vancouver.
The project included extending the Waterfront Renaissance Trail as the continuous link that connects the park to adjacent open spaces and upland neighborhoods, commercial centers, and gathering points. Integrating the park with the future development parcels, connecting it to the downtown core, and ensuring that its waterfront element meets the community’s expectations were key to designing and developing the park. Providing interest and educational experience to the park are numerous displays of public artwork throughout the site.
WSP provided park master planning, public outreach and involvement, natural resource assessment, landscape architecture, structural design, and permitting for the park’s waterfront improvements. To create a feasible, constructible design that balances a complex set of project goals, we worked closely with the City, the owners of adjacent properties, and regulatory agencies.
The project design included significant ecological sustainability efforts, including the removal of old in-water piling and concrete debris, restoration of shorelines and riparian vegetation and other habitat enhancements. The native and adaptive planting palette reduces irrigation and fertilizer needs; and areas where small amounts of irrigation are needed, smart irrigation controllers and weather stations minimize water usage. Storm water runoff is collected in low-impact development (LID) swales, protecting the river from fertilizers and landscape chemicals. Runoff from the wood surfaces of the pier is collected and treated in LID bioretention treatment cells.
Vancouver Waterfront Park is an example of how WSP is committed to creating a world that is Future Ready™—thinking beyond the conventional to develop solutions that create livable and sustainable urban space in areas where it would have previously been unthinkable.
The project was recognized as a recipient of a national American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Honor Award for structural systems. It was also named 2019 Project of the Year by ACEC-Oregon, and won the Washington state chapter’s best-in-the-state Gold Award in the social, economic and sustainable design category.
