TRADES DISTRICT & DIMENSION MILL

Anderson + Bohlander was the project lead and landscape architects for the City of Bloomington’s effort to develop a new, highly-customized infrastructure for its downtown Certified Tech Park. Building off the objectives outlined in the master plan for the larger 65-acre tech park, the team’s early efforts focused on place-making and identity for the 12-acre core of the park that would become known as “The Trades District” and establishing a set of planning and design guidelines that would inform the design process and set the stage for future development.  The basis of the design was to establish an innovative urban environment that would celebrate the industrial character of the area that once served as part of the historic Showers Brothers furniture factory and attract new private investment and job growth in the tech sector.  Two new curbless streets were envisioned for the area that would bisect the site into smaller development parcels and help to activate the dilapidated Showers Dimension Mill structure at the center of the site that was to be renovated into a new co-working facility and community event space.  An innovative approach to stormwater management incorporates large areas of permeable paving within the pedestrian right-of-way above structural soil cells to promote healthier growing environments for the street trees, and trench drains in the roadway that divert low flow storm events through subsurface underdrains into the adjacent planters.  Large infiltration planters at the ends of the roads capture and hold large storm events to promote ground-water infiltration before re-entering the storm system through an underground detention facility.