The new 9th Ave NW Park is one of two Seattle parks selected to participate in a nationwide sustainable landscape pilot project.
A drawing of the park design unveiled at the final community meeting courtesy Site Workshop. There is a p-patch to the left, green space in the middle and a play area to the right. While the features are the same, some of the shapes and sizes of each area have changed as the design process continues.
The Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) is a voluntary program that uses a 250-point rating system to determine how green a park is. The rating system includes landscape design, construction and maintenance. The 9th Ave NW Park, which sits between NW 70th and NW 73rd St, is currently in the design phase. According to the Parks Department,
“This new park has been developed to reflect the site’s past and the environmentally conscious neighborhood’s future. A community garden will continue the site’s history of food production, while many site relics will be reused within the park design. At the street edge, unnecessary paving is reclaimed for use as rain gardens. These gardens will buffer the park from the road and clean and store stormwater taken directly from the street. This will benefit King County’s combined sewer system, which will improve Puget Sound water quality.”
SITES will use feedback from the 9th Ave NW Park, and 150 other pilot sites nationwide for their final rating system and reference guide. “The U.S. Green Building Council, a stakeholder in the Sustainable Sites Initiative, anticipates incorporating the guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of its LEED® Green Building Rating System™,” a release from the Parks Department states.
Bradner Gardens Park is in southeast Seattle is the second park selected. KCTS 9 in Seattle and the Theater Commons and Donnelly Gardens at the Seattle Center are also on the list of pilot projects.