Landscape Architect Articles

Connecting the Cottonwood Creek Trail03-10-17 | Department

Connecting the Cottonwood Creek Trail
By Michael Miyamoto, LASN

Huitt-Zollars, Inc., provided engineering and landscape architecture services pro bono to develop "Section E" of the Cottonwood Creek Trail in Dallas, Texas. Section E includes 2,500 linear feet of 12-foot wide concrete trail, a 240-foot three-span pedestrian bridge over the creek, and 570 linear feet of concrete retaining walls. Mezger Enterprises donated custom cut limestone for the columns, bridge entryway, sidewalk accents, entry monuments and benches.

Cottonwood Creek Trail, located in Dallas, Texas, stretches from the Dallas-Richardson city limits on the north to the White Rock Creek Trail in South Dallas. It was incomplete until a community-wide effort was undertaken to develop certain parts of Hamilton Park, thus linking all the sections of the trail together. The trail network is an important element in an overall transportation mobility plan for the city.

Huitt-Zollars Inc., a full-service architectural and engineering firm, designed what is called Section E of the Cottonwood Creek Trail. It provided all site civil and structural engineering and landscape architectural design services pro bono for the project.

Section E features two 170-foot diameter plazas, one on each side of Cottonwood Creek. A pedestrian bridge links the West Plaza (center) with the East Plaza (upper left). Oncor Electric Delivery donated 53 trees.

Kenneth Roberts, PE, led the design effort, and the landscape architecture firm received a CLIDE (Celebrating Leadership In Design Excellence) Award from the North Central Texas Council of Governments for its work on the Cottonwood Creek Trail.

Design challenges for the project were locating and orienting the bridge so it cleared the span of the 100-year flood plain, and sizing two plazas on either side of Cottonwood Creek so they would not encroach into the creek's floodway. Section E was incorporated into a package with three other sections of the trail for bidding and construction. Constructing the undeveloped sections of the trail, including Section E, cost $4.5 million.

As seen in LASN magazine, February 2017.