Unique design has visitors winging to minipark

Since its opening in Spring 1994, Hummingbird Park, a minipark in Scottsdale, Ariz., created on right-of-way left by a road building project, has had area residents–and the world’s smallest species of bird–flocking to the small, roadside venue on the fringes of the downtown retail district.

The park is a byproduct of “The East Couplet,” the final link in a $21 million pair of roadways built as part of the facility’s downtown plan to enhance access to and around the city’s retail hub. The modified beltway provides alternative access into downtown and north/south corridors for higher traffic movements. The couplet system creates a dividing line between pedestrian-friendly districts and larger, scale, traffic-friendly areas.

The couplet involved a five-lane road with an elevated median. The mile-long, sweeping segment had to connect with two other roads and presented design issues complex enough that it had to be undertaken in two phases. The first involved construction of a three-quarter-mile-long cast-in-place concrete stormwater drainage improvement ranging from 48 inches in diameter to 84 inches in diameter, followed by the final road, which included 8,000 square feet of decorative concrete.

The S-shaped alignment left three parcels of land considered too small for sale and development. The design team, led by Phoenix-based Greiner, weighed a number of options before deciding on appropriate public uses. The roadway’s plan had already incorporated other landscape and art features, underwritten largely by a 1 percent set-aside program established in 1985 to fund inclusion of different kinds of art in public works projects.

The three parcels included a 20,000-square-foot remnant that was landscaped into a future setting for a major art piece and a 10,000-square-foot tract dedicated to additional parking for a nearby multi-use stadium. The smallest, a 2,500-square,foot remnant left by vacated road alignment, was developed into a haven for hummingbirds.

A project team worked to integrate materials, colors and finishes that added visual appeal along the new segment of road. The recommended patterns, textures and colors were then reinforced with appropriate plant materials and hardscape treatment.

During planning sessions, a theme emerged for the new minipark. A bird-watching garden was suggested because of the minipark’s proximity to elderly housing, nursing homes and a hospital. The minipark won approval from the city’s Development Review Board and was funded within the original project budget.

This was an especially high-profile project that became a logical candidate for Scottsdale’s policy of integrating art into public works,” says Joe Gross, the city’s capital projects management director. “They took an odd, shaped parcel with no other beneficial use and made a park setting that was ideal given the context and type of neighboring residents likely to appreciate it for many years.”

A stylized trumpet vine blossom is suggested from the form of the hardscape to an array of sculptures throughout the minipark.

The colors of Indian Red and Yellow Ochre are applied to the pavement and seatwalls. Five 15-foot,high sculptures of flowers are the park’s signature elements.

Two slightly recessed waterers at ground level present a mini-oasis and are tucked within carefully selected native plantings attractive to hummingbirds and other species.

More than a dozen hummingbird feeders that were donated to the project hang from the trees and will be maintained by nursing homes as a volunteer project.

The park, which opened in May, 1995, is one of more than 140 projects that have been completed by a $300 million, bond-funded capital improvement program. The funds underwrite about $40 million worth of improvements annually.