“ Our landscape architect put the recipe together – so much of this , so much of that
– and they had several truckloads of that out there . They put it under the sidewalk , so it ’ s pretty cool ,” he said , adding that the new trees are thriving in their new habitat .
Cal Hardie , chief design engineer for the City of Tampa , said the tree wells have proved to be important pedestrian features .
“ We look at them as transportation assets ,” Hardie said . “ You can ’ t have a multimodal corridor , especially in Florida , without providing shade . We worked very hard with our electric company to try to find a tree species that worked with their overhead lines .”
“ So many times you see these poor oak trees and they ’ re struggling for years , just trying to eek out an existence ,” he went on , “ and it ’ s because a tree is not naturally comfortable sitting in a street . Trees like a lot of vegetation to spread their roots out , so the design challenge was just that : to make a comfortable place for a tree to thrive in a street and without irrigation , using natural runoff from the roadway .”
Recipe for Success
Ayres ’ staff , along with their drainage and landscape architecture subconsultants , put their heads together and developed a concept that , after several iterations , met the objectives while also containing the trees , like a planter would a houseplant ; surrounding them in good soils ; offering a water source , and allowing them to spread out as they matured .
To prevent the roots from going into the street and bringing up the asphalt , the team put the voids behind the box so the roots could instead go into the residential area and along the street . The planting material was carefully chosen to minimize the “ shock element ” for the new trees , Siewert said .
He proudly noted that the trees being planted in resilient tree structures , allowing them to accept some of the stormwater runoff , is an environmental first for the City .
“ We ’ ve done other resiliency measures , such as rain gardens and bioswales , but this was the first time using a street tree planter ,” he said , elaborating on their functionality .
“ If it ’ s a big rain storm , it will just fill up and bypass the tree altogether and go into the drainage structure ,” he continued . “ But all the oils , all the dirt , all the pollutants drain directly to our Bay , so we wanted to try and provide something like that , and this is a good way to naturally filter the stormwater runoff while irrigating the street tree , so it ’ s kind of a win-win little resiliency feature there .”
All in the Details
Designers also made a point of “ placemaking ” and carrying on traditional Ybor City signage and its distinctive hexagonal pavers as much as possible .
“ You can see all the particulars that are signature for this project ,” Siewert said . “ The crosswalk has the shape of the Ybor paver , and that ’ s an exact replication of what ’ s done on Seventh Avenue so that it ’ s a continuous element .”
12 | TRENDS Ingenuity , Integrity , and Intelligence .