June 1, 2015

Mayer/Reed team picked to design $30M riverwalk on the Willamette

Images by Snøhetta [enlarge]

Blue Heron Paper Co. folded in 2011, leaving behind 23 acres along the Willamette River, with views of Willamette Falls.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced the team that will design a $30 million public riverwalk through the former site of Blue Heron Paper Co. in Oregon City, 13 miles south of Portland.

The winner was Mayer/Reed, Snøhetta and Dialog.

Blue Heron folded in 2011, leaving behind a 23-acre industrial property along the Willamette River, south of downtown Oregon City. The site has views of Willamette Falls, the second-largest waterfall by volume in North America, after Niagara Falls.

The goal of the half-mile riverwalk project is to help spur redevelopment on the site, which was purchased by developer George Heidgerken for $2.2 million in 2014.

Heidgerken also acquired the old Abitibi paper mill in Steilacoom in 2013, and part of the former Olympia brewery in Tumwater in 2010.

The design team was selected from among three heavy-hitting finalists, suggesting the unique nature of this project.

The other finalists were the team of James Corner Field Operations, Place Studio and Miller Hull; and the team of Walker Macy and Thomas Balsley Associates.

Mayer/Reed is a Portland-based landscape architecture, urban design and visual communications firm. Snøhetta is based in Norway and specializes in architecture, landscape design, interiors and graphic design. Dialog is an urban design firm with offices in Portland and across Canada.

The budget for early design work is $650,000. The first phase, including construction, will total $10 million, with half of the funding coming from the state of Oregon.

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The former industrial site will connect people to the falls as well as a downtown district with housing.

Heidgerken is working with four public partners: Oregon City, Clackamas County, the Metro regional service district and the state of Oregon. Together the group is called Willamette Falls Legacy Project.

Heidgerken granted a waterfront easement for the riverwalk, and will pick up part of the tab for design and preliminary engineering. He has also agreed to pay for at least 20 percent of the operations and maintenance costs after the work is complete.

The riverwalk will be designed to connect people to the falls as well as a downtown district with space for housing, businesses and recreation.

The current designs for the riverwalk are preliminary. Final design will follow a public-engagement process.

The design team's winning proposal for the site refers to Willamette Falls and the complex material layers of the site as “a portal to the Northwest's collective history,” according to a statement from Metro, the lead agency during the schematic design.

Oregon City Mayor Dan Holladay said the project “will not only allow the public to return to an amazing section of the Willamette River in Oregon City, but will also drive economic investment into the Blue Heron property and surrounding area.”