North Park re-envisions neighborhood

By Celene Adams | Reportero SDUN

One young viewer’s reaction to an Aug. 13 exhibit displaying plans for a broad-scale renovation of five key intersections in North Park was, “Look Ma! My bubblegum won’t stick to the sidewalk!”

Titled the Sustainable North Park Main Street project (SNPMS), the plan envisions more than gum-resistant sidewalks, Building retrofits, implementation of new business practices and public improvements that work together to support the goal of “greening” North Park’s commercial corridors are also part of the prospective redesign.

Initiated three years ago with grants from the State Office of Historic Preservation and SDG&E, the project brings professional architects together with community and sustainability stakeholders in order to design a coordinated approach to conserving energy, lowering the cost of doing business and preserving the neighborhood’s historic integrity. Attracting consumers, residents and green businesses owners to North Park is a goal as well.

“We want to create a lasting framework for economic prosperity, community action and an improved urban environment,” said Stephen Russell, architectural intern with Platt/Whitelaw Architects, one of the firms at the forefront of the project.

About 125 people attended the three-hour exhibit, hosted by North Park’s Art Produce Gallery. Attendees were eager to see how the neighborhood could look after renovation and to learn about green building practices as well as financial incentives to assist in implementing the changes.

“So many people…want to [get involved] but they don’t really know how, [or] when and where to go,” said Angela Landsberg, executive director of North Park Main Street (NPMS), a business improvement district affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Along with soliciting additional federal and state grants to fund the project, Landsberg said her association will work with business and building owners by directing them to resources and coaching them through the process of going green.

“We’ll be putting together a committee that will keep this ball rolling … and we’ll be looking for community input on that,” Landsberg said.

Keeping the momentum going is key to such large-scale projects. Although the North Park sustainable project was initiated three years ago, it began losing steam due to a lack of human capital. It was not until graduates from the NewSchool of Architecture & Design in downtown San Diego volunteered to help that the plan began to materialize.

“We’ve been working since last summer on a pro bono basis to…provide visuals,” said Söeren Wegener, one of six NewSchool graduates who donate design services to SNPMS. “First, we documented what is in North Park and gathered data, and then we established a vision for what could be a sustainable North Park.”

The process also includes gathering community feedback. As a result SNPMS has been able to develop a matrix of the public’s priorities for the project.

“We received suggestions for sustainable practices…More bike racks, more use of local growers in restaurants, and no Styrofoam usage were some of them,” said Landsberg.

Implementing the plan will take place in several stages. Having completed the envisioning stage, SNPMS is now examining the specifics of increasing energy efficiencies in the area’s buildings and businesses.

Wegener said the SDG&E grant enables “taking a generic building envelope, similar to what you find a lot [in North Park], and [evaluating] what measures we apply to the building and what the impact on the energy load is, in terms of heating and cooling loads. Depending on the orientation of the building, we’re going to develop all these scenarios [to reduce energy expenditure]. We hope that by showing this, people can apply it to their own [buildings].”

In an effort to encourage such transition to sustainable infrastructure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2009, developed a National Smart Growth Achievement Award. To date the EPA has awarded nine communities for green building, policies and civic development. In 2010, in collaboration with other federal agencies, the EPA began releasing $409.5 million in local grants to support creating sustainable living communities nationwide.

In addition to boosting the economy and raising quality of life, sustainable communities “also attract green businesses” and raise property values, Wegener said. “A building that’s green is more valuable. Your utilities bills go down, your lease rates go up…[and] doing business in a walkable community allows more customers to come in.”

Planners have developed “a very detailed [chart] that has interventions listed with the specific business type that coordinate with the actual resource that we’re working on. So, we might look at water [and] the type of business that it is and how that business would use that intervention. It’s really user friendly,” said Landsberg. She added that in addition to hiring a staff person to help businesses and building owners find the resources they need to implement such improvements, North Park Main Street plans to erect a website where such information will be posted.

SNPMS will release specific anticipated cost savings analyses for particular buildings it has studied in North Park on Fri., Sept. 30. The report will aide in securing additional grant monies, which SNPMS needs in order to take the project further.

“I’m going to be out there looking for grants to do what we need to do,” said Landsberg, saying the project’s scope will depend on how much funding is secured.

“We’ll take this as big as we’re able to,” she said.

As SNPMS gains more financial support, its credibility as a model for other community planning efforts will also grow.

“I really see what we’re doing right now as an umbrella,” Landsberg said, noting that the project has the potential to provide a framework that will guide other neighborhoods that want to plan communities based on similar objectives.

SNPMS has identified several such objectives, including: increasing conservation and the efficient use of resources within the district; increasing community connectivity; providing a setting for a sustainable green economy; maintaining the cultural and historical integrity of the built and social environment and, of course, making sure gum won’t stick to the sidewalks.

For more information, contact Angela Landsberg, at North Park Main Street at (619) 294-2501 or e-mail angela@northparkmainstreet.