Nonprofit organization Building a Better Bend today announced its annual lecture series. This year’s theme is Retrofitting Bend.
Part 1 is Retrofitting Bend for a Livable Future, Presented by Killian Pacific. Bend is growing fast and if we don’t add more neighborhood gathering places and mini-downtowns in more parts of our city, our quality of life is at risk and we won’t meet our climate goals. Cross-town traffic will get worse; kids, the elderly, low-income neighbors, walkers, and bikers will suffer; and our existing special places could get loved to death.
Overcoming this challenge requires reimagining aging strip malls and empty big box stores into a new network of vibrant, walkable, mixed-use “mini-downtowns” for shopping, gathering, and playing. What happens to the old Costco on the east side? At ten-acres, the old Costco site is about the size of downtown Bend!
Imagine if kids could walk to the grocery store, to school, and to the park all across our city — including far east, south and north? The wide, fast and unpleasant commercial corridors we’ve built in the past can be retrofitted to be livable, safe, kid-friendly and fun. New state planning requirements (called Climate Friendly Areas) are requiring Bend to focus on these areas, but how that happens depends on us.
Director of the Urban Design Master’s program at Georgia Tech, Ellen Dunham-Jones has studied communities who have “retrofitted suburbia” and will share inspiring examples and key lessons learned to help us jumpstart this complicated but important work here in Bend.
Part 2 Retrofitting Bend for a Resilient Future will take place this fall and will focus on climate resilience in planning and building for the future of Bend. More information forthcoming this summer.
About Building a Better Bend:
For 20 years, Building a Better Bend has been bringing an annual lecture series to
Central Oregon. We host expert speakers who share their experiences with the public and professionals in our community about ways to have a positive impact on the quality of development and growth in our region.
