 
|
|||||||||
              
|
North Shore Riverfront Park design has Pittsburgh feel Steel I-beams and Butler County stone are part of the local color planned for park Tuesday, February 27, 2001 By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
With benches fashioned from steel I-beams and stepping stones hewn from a Butler County quarry, the North Shore Riverfront Park will have a decidedly Pittsburgh sense of place.
As envisioned by park consultant EDAW of Alexandria, Va., and based on comments from hundreds of city and county residents, the park will have two linear elements -- an 18-foot-wide river walk at the water's edge and a 40-foot-wide brick promenade lined with trees, benches and, eventually, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and shops.
EDAW's newest renderings show precisely how the river's edge will be transformed, with water steps, a 90-foot pier that brings the land out into the river, and with a sloping hillside garden that changes colors with the seasons.
One of the park's focal points -- and likely its most popular feature -- will be the cascading water steps just west of PNC Park, which will drop 20 feet over a distance of 150 feet and will include a 4-foot waterfall.
The water will descend from Canal Place, a narrow block-long, rectangular pool recalling the Pennsylvania Canal's route through Pittsburgh. Sandstone blocks will serve as stepping stones across the lower pool 8 to 12 inches deep, bringing a bit of the wild Youghiogheny to the city's waterfront.
River birches, fountain and ribbon grasses, and weeping cotoneaster that will spill tiny white flowers and red berries over planting beds will add to the water steps' informality.
When the wind blows, both water and plants will be in motion.
"It makes a more dynamic environment," said Dennis Carmichael, EDAW's principal in charge of the project.
Balancing this natural setting within an urban environment, the water steps rest in a formal framework -- the concrete steps that flank them and provide a connection between the riverwalk and promenade.
Paved in brown brick, the promenade crosses over the water steps and Canal Place as a pedestrian bridge, with entrances marked by tall sandstone pylons. The promenade's steel balustrade is punctuated by low sandstone posts every 10 feet.
The sandstone pylons, capped with lanterns, are repeated at the end of the 90-foot-long pier about midway between the PNC Park and the new Steelers stadium. In addition to providing a place for fishing, sunning and sightseeing, the pier also could host informal performances.
The promenade's benches, framed with steel I-beams and with seats and backs made of half-inch steel rods, are an homage to the industry long synonymous with Pittsburgh. They will be painted black.
"The whole intent was to make something unique to this site and city," Carmichael said. "Steel is an obvious choice."
Not too obvious a choice?
"I think you want to celebrate what is the unique thing. You could argue it may be a little too obvious, but sometimes you have to be direct in order for people to get it."
Just east of PNC Park, on the site of the present Allegheny Landing offices, the new park will feature Allegheny Gardens, a four-acre green park with ornamental gardens and picnic areas that also will incorporate the existing sculptures.
Because of them and their proximity to The Andy Warhol Museum, Allegheny Gardens is envisioned as an art park designed on two Warholian themes -- bold colors and serialization.
"Most of the criticisms we heard about that space is that it was pretty blah, because it was just an open lawn," Carmichael said.
Four similarly shaped landscaped zones will display unique color patterns in each season.
Red maples and ginkgos will share the planting beds with forsythia, purple butterfly bush, swamp azalea and other shrubs and perennials. Stepping stones will provide informal paths through the gardens.
"It'll have a lot of color, a lot of texture," Carmichael said. "It really will be a garden where other areas of the park are less fussy. It will require a certain amount of maintenance, but we think for one area of the park, it's worth it."
Still to be worked out are the design details of the Great Lawn, just east of the Steelers stadium, and of the causeway suggested for the Carnegie Science Center riverfront.
At the west end of the Great Lawn is the old Manchester Bridge pier, atop which Carmichael wants to create an overlook called the Belvedere. This is viewed as one of several opportunities for new public art in the park.
Part of the appeal of EDAW's illustrations is that its promenade is lined with buildings four stories tall, which would house retail on the first floor and commercial or residential above.
While the firm that designed the area's master plan, UDA Architects, has recommended such low-rise buildings along the promenade, nothing has been decided about height restrictions and the buildings shown on the drawings are purely conjectural.
At the controls of a yellow bulldozer yesterday, a worker was pushing football-sized chunks of limestone into the Allegheny River.
Soon they'll be topped with smaller stones, which will be covered with concrete, forming the boat landing for the Gateway Clipper fleet, water taxis and other vessels, just down river of PNC Park.
The landing, known as the Pirates Quay, will be the first completed piece of the park when it opens March 31, in time for the Pirates' first exhibition game.
The Steelers Quay and the river walk will be finished by Aug. 1, with tie-ups for pleasure boats all along the riverfront. No timetable has been set for completion of the water steps and promenade, but they are included in the park's first phase, budgeted at $33.2 million.
|
||||||||
