The goal of the Urban Design Program is to make Saskatoon competitive, livable, healthy, inclusive and distinctive. Programs and projects are established to help the economy thrive while facilitating creativity and innovation. Public spaces are designed to support choices for transportation, habitation, work and lifestyles. The Urban Design Program seeks to establish a competitive edge for Saskatoon by creating a distinctive city with a strong identity and sense of place.
Banner Program
The installation of banners creates a welcoming atmosphere and provides a sense of arrival to tourists and other motorists. Banners also enhance the pedestrian environment when installed along retail corridors such as Broadway and 2nd Avenue by providing a festive atmosphere and decorating the street with colour. In addition to initiating its own banner program, the City receives requests from outsides agencies to install banners along city streets. Accompanying guidelines provide a framework which allows banner programs to proceed in a coordinated, safe and aesthetically acceptable manner.
Click on the following links for more information:
The Third Avenue Streetscape Project
This project involves streetscaping from 19th Street to 23rd Street, including sidewalk remediation, the installation of street trees, irrigation, and street furniture, and coordination with Saskatoon Light and Power for overhead line removal. 3rd Avenue is a key street in the Partnership BID area and has been identified in the Downtown Plan as a streetscaping priority. The first phase in 2009 included the streetscape along 3rd Avenue from 21st to 22nd Street and was 70% complete at the end of the year. This ambitious project was only possible due to a project-specific increase in funding from additional parking meter revenues.
Budget - $7,049,000
Funding - Streetscape Reserve - BIDs, Electrical Distribution Reserve
Status - to be completed in 2013
Click on the following link for drawings of: 3rd Avenue Streetscape Improvements (pdf)
Click on the following link for the: 3rd Avenue Approved Master Plan (pdf)
Some of the improvements include:
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Planted centre median, street trees, and visual amenities
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Corner bulbing and extend bus bulbs
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Sidewalk improvements with amenity strip
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Heritage interpretation elements
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Pedestrian lighting and unique street furniture
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Two lanes of traffic with a shared bike lane in each direction
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Parallel parking
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Removal of overhead lines
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Resurfacing of 3rd Avenue
Placemaker Public Art Program
The City of Saskatoon Urban Design Section is dedicated to making Saskatoon's Downtown, Broadway, and Riversdale Business Improvement Districts visually pleasing places. The Placemaker Public Art Program originated in 1994 and has had great success ever since.
Click on the following link to view the:
Placemaker Program Call For Proposals (pdf)
Arabesque by Douglas Bentham
Urban Design Program Background
The Urban Design Program is defined in two parts to reflect two different funding sources. City Council established the Streetscape Reserve in 1988, which provided a sustainable funding mechanism to support the Urban Design - BIDs Program. The Streetscape Reserve - BID is funded by 43 percent of the annual parking meter revenues, generating an annual contribution of around $1.5 million. Because of this Reserve’s connection to the parking meters, the Urban Design - BIDs Program scope of work is limited to Downtown, Broadway and Riversdale Business Improvement Districts.
The Urban Design City-wide program was established for a five-year term by City Council in January 2008. The approved funding for this program is from an annual allocation of $750,000 from Land Sales Administration Fees. The City-Wide Urban Design Program is currently limited to executing small-scale projects, and to using its modest funds to leverage partnerships between the various constituencies within the city, as well as the business improvement districts and private companies to implement larger-scaled projects. In 2013, after a detailed review, Council will decide whether to continue with the City-Wide Urban Design Program.
Urban Design Program Mandate
1. Identify urban design goals
2. Design capital projects for urban public spaces and rights of way
3. Support programs promoting urban design of public & private spaces & structures
4. Assist with architectural best-practice guidelines
5. Review urban design related projects affecting public open space & rights of way
By their very nature, urban design improvement projects are interdisciplinary and cross over jurisdictional boundaries within the civic administration. Typical public space projects include planning, traffic engineering, landscape design, roadway design, utility design, lighting design, transit and electrical engineering. The Urban Design Program Committee functions to facilitate the coordination of streetscape and urban public space projects within the Administration. The committee consists of representatives from relevant civic departments and branches as well as key people from major stakeholder groups relevant to the areas served.
The Urban Design Section staff act as the leaders and coordinators for the multidisciplinary design and development team. Because of our unique and cross-disciplinary set of skills, when resources permit the Urban Design team acts as design and/or project management consultants on other civic projects outside of the mandate of the Urban Design Program. Our collective background includes architecture, landscape architecture, engineering technology, planning and the visual arts, and we have contributed to both ongoing programmes and special projects for the Corporation.
The Urban Design team has won numerous awards throughout the years at the Premier’s Awards of Excellence in Design for their work in River Landing and throughout Saskatoon.