Transforming 30th Street At Garden Of The Gods

Client: City of Colorado Springs

Location: City of Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado

Brief:

Garden of the Gods is iconic for the City of Colorado Springs, the region and the state of Colorado. As such, it deserves an iconic entrance. In 2016, Felsburg Holt & Ullevig embarked on a revival of the park entrance.

The 30th Street project enhanced the visitor experience and improved access to the park. Additionally, the project provided safety improvements with slope stability and improvements to stormwater management and water quality.

This landmark now has an equally stunning and improved entrance to welcome more than 4.5 million visitors a year and for generations to come.

Services Rendered:

Reimaging of sign plaza
Grade separated park connections
Innovative water quality measures
Community & cultural preservation while mitigating slope stability

Before: Gateway into Garden of the Gods

The Gateway Road entrance into Garden of the Gods Park before the project was characterized by congestion and vehicle-pedestrian conflicts due to visitors parking along the street to access the Garden of the Gods sign plaza and general park access.

Construction of Gateway entrance

Access to the Garden of the Gods was maintained during construction via a detour. Closing 30th Street north, then south, of Gateway Road resulted in an expedited construction schedule. This approach allowed the contractor to stage and construct while avoiding any conflict with the traveling public along the narrow corridor.

Construction: Water quality ponds

One of the greatest project challenges was finding locations for water quality ponds that avoided impacts to the Garden of the Gods and Rock Ledge Ranch. Long stormwater pipe runs were used to discharge into the most ideal locations to preserve the environment and historic culture. This sand bottom water quality pond provides clean discharge into camp creek.

After: Preserving neighborhoods and the park with walls while providing slope stability

30th Street is sandwiched between steep hillsides with slope instability on the east and the pristine Garden of the Gods and desirable neighborhoods like Pleasant Valley nestled up to the roadway on the west. To protect the natural and cultural treasures on the west, the 15-feet of roadway widening occurred on the east, forcing the project to deal with slope stability walls in the corridor.

After: Trail structure under Gateway

The concrete box culvert was designed at existing grades to avoid excavating in sensitive archeological and paleontological areas. The structure can accommodate two-way bikes and pedestrians and maintenance vehicles.

After: Gateway Revival –Transformed entrance to Garden of the Gods

Congestion into the Garden of the Gods Park was addressed with a single lane roundabout that better matched the natural feel of the park verses a signalized intersection contributing to light pollution and an urban feel. The roundabout was raised over the existing intersection grades to accommodate a trail underpass, eliminating pedestrian and bicycle conflicts with vehicles. The Garden of the Gods sign plaza was moved north to an ideal vista of Pikes Peak and accessed from the parking lot via the trail underpass.