The Center for Environmental Structure (CES), the design firm
that’s working on developing a vision and plan for the South Downtown, received
a warm welcome from Council on August 19th when it shared its first phase of
work at the regularly scheduled meeting.
Using the information gathered from 34 individual interviews with Milwaukie
citizens that lasted about an hour each, Randy Schmidt of CES described the
themes that emerged from those discussions and how those themes will go on to
inform the firm’s future work. The interviews focused on finding out what
downtown elements citizens wanted to protect, enhance, or reproduce in other
areas of Downtown.
Some of the conclusions drawn from this work were that the basic concept of
creating a plaza at the south end of town near Dogwood Park is a good one, and
that restoring Kellogg Lake to a creek and enhancing access to the natural area
would be a great asset.
City Council authorized a contract of $120,000 for CES to begin work on
successive phases of work that will lead to an updated concept plan and an
implementation strategy for the south downtown. This work is expected to run
through January of ‘09.
For more information, please contact Milwaukie Information Coordinator Grady
Wheeler by pone at (503) 786-7503 or email him at
wheelerg@ci.milwaukie.or.us.
