Wednesday, January 7, 2015
B1
The state of State: Urban Renewal is complete
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
For the last two Augusts,
State Street was a mess.
This August will be far dif-
ferent.
The Urban Renewal Pro-
ject on State (and Front and a
portion of Oak) is all but fin-
ished. It began on Aug. 5,
2013, with the arrival of piles
of gravel and backhoes dig-
ging the first trenches. Au-
gust and September 2013 and
2014, and the full summer of
2014, saw extensive traffic in-
terruptions as Crestline Con-
struction and subcontract
crews literally tore up the
street.
The routine detours, the
piles of gravel, the dust, the
heavy machinery parked in
the road, the blocked drive-
ways, the closed crosswalks,
all a thing of the past — ex-
cept for one final stretch:
completion of the restroom
at Third Street, set for com-
pletion in February.
And, for weather reasons,
most of the landscaping will
have to wait for the spring.
But new ornamental pears
went in during fall 2014.
AT RIGHT, the elevated and
street level sidewalks between
Second and First streets, looking
east. In the future, the upper
level can be tied into staircases
leading from homes or busi-
nesses located on Sherman
Street, to the south. Also on this
page: then-and-now pairs of
photos and images from the De-
cember 2014 final stages of the
Urban Renewal project. Called
the State Street project, it also
brought interruptions and im-
provements — new paving,
sidewalks and curbs and gutters
— to Oak Street (the views
below are out the window of
Ground coffeehouse, January
2014) west of First, and on Front
Street, where Martin Marquez
of Schuepbach Construction
shapes newly poured concrete
in July 2014.
Photos by Kirby Neumann-Rea
Please see STATE, Page B10
THIS PICTURE, a worker standing in a hole, putting something
new into that hole — in this case a water line valve — best depicts
the whole point of State Street Urban Renewal.
ABOVE: TWO VIEWS AT THIRD AND STATE, in
September 2013 and December 2014. At left: Sixth
and State, the old retaining wall (a mix of rock and
concrete chunks that were crumbling into the drain-
ing ditch) and formation of the new wall in August
2014. In the background is the county administra-
tion building at Sixth and State. Asbury Church
building is now in private ownership of Claudia von
Flotow, who is developing it for commercial use.
Below, Rick Olmstead of Hood River adds one of the
finishing touches to the project, the brick “caps”
that are found on seating walls in front of Riverside
Church, at Sixth and State, and in front of the Coun-
ty Courthouse at Third Street. Rick’s son, Gannon,
assisted. At the bottom of the page, center: old side-
walk gets uprooted in January 2014, and in Decem-
ber 2014 parking stripes and bike route symbols
were placed on the asphalt.
A NARROW STAIRWAY in front of the County Courthouse, just
east of Third Street, used to serve homes on the south side of State
before the courthouse construction in 1956. The stairs were filled in
and overgrown, but visible; for more views of 19th century rem-
nants, removed during the project, see page B10.