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State Street Area Sidewalk Renovations

Brian Barrick of Pollack Designs

What exactly is the plan here? Why are the cement traffic islands being torn up? Why is the beautiful planter in front of the Michigan Theater Building being demolished? Why are some of the sidewalks wider than the others? And what about the fabled vaults under the side walks? Has anyone taken all these things into consideration?

You bet. Brian Barrick along with everyone else at Pollack Designs, Washtenaw Engineering and Neil Adams, Inc, has taken everything into consideration. Only a three-year veteran with Pollack, Brian -- a great blond bear of a man -- has already been the project manager for the rebuilt streetscape in Sioux Saint Marie and for the sidewalk renovation on Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti. Those projects were professional and Brian handled them with the calm maturity of a man twice his age. But his role as project manager for the State Street Area Pedasterian Improvment Project is personal: Brian lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and, in this case, he not only has to talk to the talk, he literally has to walk the walk.

According to Brian, "the road (in the State Street Area) was wider than it needed to be." Thus the road could be narrowed and the space "could be better utilized for sidewalks." So why are some sidewalks wider than others? "Sunlight conditions", Brian explained. The designers noticed that the northern and eastern sides of the street received far more sunlight than the southern and western sides. Thus was born the notion of an asymmetrical design, one in which the sidewalks on the northern and eastern sides of the streets -- the "Garden Side", as Brian calls them -- would be extended to fourteen feet while the sidewalks on the southern and western sides -- the "Urban Side" -- would remain at their current size of eleven feet. This asymmetrical plan determined different designs for the Garden and the Urban sidewalks. The Garden sidewalks will have tree planters and taller light fixtures sending their light downwards with an ambient glow into the trees while the Urban sidewalks will have fewer trees and lower light fixtures sending their light downwards onto the sidewalk. And what trees! Honey locusts, Gingkoes, Golden Rain Trees, Hardy Rubber Trees, Bald Cypresses, trees that, Brian said, "have been well-tested in an urban environment.".

Naturally, this being Ann Arbor, the trees and the lampposts won't be the only vertical features in the sidewalk renovations. Inevitably, there will be signs and parking meters. The signs are, of course, required by legal considerations and the parking meters are, of course, required by financial considerations. But Brian has taken even these inevitabilities into consideration. "Our goal is to eliminate the clutter," he stated emphatically, "to reduce the number of poles to a minimum." So the lampposts will also incorporate parking meters and signs. And not each and every one of the approximately twenty-nine million signs which are currently hanging in the State Street Area will be hanging in the new State Street Area: "We've talked to the Sign and Signal Department to reduce the number of redundant signs to an absolute minimum."

Nor is that all the clutter that the design will be reducing. "Right now, there are twenty newspaper vending machine of various shapes and sizes," Brian said, "but the new design will have them stacked in modules so they'll take up a lot less room." Of course, some of the objects on the sidewalks are amenities not clutter, and the design will still have benches on North University and on Maynard Street while there will be bike racks on every street.

Finally, Brian has taken into consideration the fabled vaults under the sidewalks. Originally designed as coal chutes or as access the basements from the sidewalk for goods delivery, the vaults are Ann Arbor's catacombs and, as anyone who ever worked in a building with a vault will tell you, they are unbelievably cool. However, the vaults -- great big empty space under every sidewalk -- do make renovations challenging. As Brian said, "The vaults will remain in place but," and he lowered his voice for emphasis. "we must be extremely careful!"

No doubt, he will be, Brian seems like the kind of man who takes everything into consideration.

By James Leonard