Projects - Infrastructures
Roads: Vehicular

Downtown Street Improvements (DEPP)
Aspen, Colorado

Town of Aspen, Colorado

LORIS worked with a landscape architecture firm, completing civil, structural, lighting and mechanical engineering for this downtown pedestrian improvement project.

Aspen's 23-block core had long served the community well, both functionally and as a world-class resort, but needed to be updated. Physical improvements to streets within Aspen's downtown core were a key recommendation, resulting from the overall enhancement and pedestrian plan. To test the effectiveness of the conceptual design, a two-block area of a key primary street, Mill to Hyman between Hopkins and Monarch, was selected as the first project.

The primary goal was to make the sidewalk more pedestrian friendly by providing more walking, sitting and window shopping space without affecting parking - no net gain or loss of parking spaces. The width of the sidewalks was widened from 6' to 10' in most places by changing the nose-end parking design to parallel parking.

In addition to the above-ground work on the sidewalks and roadways, this piece of the Aspen downtown area was missing a complex piece of the storm sewer system and other underground utilities. Additional storm inlets were incorporated into the curb and gutter system and a conduit for future utilities were stubbed into alleys.

Careful communication and engineering were critical to success, because of the impact of construction on businesses, tourism and residents.