Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) in Washington State is one of the largest military bases in the country. The U.S. Department of Defense considers it to be one of the premier military installations on the west coast. The base more than doubled in population from 2002 to 2012, requiring significant construction to accommodate its new mission of sustainability and resilient green infrastructure.
Pendleton Avenue, one of the busiest streets at JBLM, is the main thoroughfare that connects the historic downtown to the surrounding retail, medical, commercial, industrial and housing areas of the base. As part of JBLM’s overall vision for redevelopment, the downtown portion of Pendleton Avenue was to be transformed beyond a traditional road-widening project into a multi-way boulevard.
Seattle-based Berger ABAM, civil engineers for the project, and Cascade Design Collaborative, which provided landscape design services, were the lead consultants and worked closely with the Directorate of Public Works at JBLM and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The roadway improvements included a tree-lined multi-way with slow-speed access lanes and parallel parking stalls comprised of Eco-Priora permeable interlocking pavers, wide sidewalks and rain gardens. This configuration provides a buffer between the vehicular arterial traffic and families living in new row houses along the boulevard, as well as people walking to various base services in the area. The side access lanes also can be blocked off for community events. More than 980 trees, 150,000 sq ft of rain gardens and a mile of bioretention cells were incorporated.
More than 70,000 sq ft of rectangular and square Eco-Priora pavers, manufactured by UNI-Group U.S.A. producer Mutual Materials of Bellevue, Wash., were used in the access lanes and sidewalks. The rain gardens and permeable pavement have been designed to mitigate 100% of storm water from 1 million sq ft of surrounding hardscape.
