The Downtown Pigeon Creek Greenway in Evansville, Indiana was dedicated on National Trails Day, June 5, 2004 as a National Recreation Trail. This 1.7 mile, $14M project was constructed in two successive but separately funded stages. The locally funded Riverfront Renovation reconstructed the deteriorating downtown levee-based esplanade and riverfront wharf area. The INDOT/Transportation Enhancement funded the earthen levee-based sections north and south of the downtown riverfront. It restored the rip-rap weed infested levee into a new linear park that links the Aztar Riverboat Casino with downtown and on past the Evansville Museum to Sunrise Park and its adjacent Riverside Historic District.

The Evansville Downtown Riverfront is the city's premier open space and cultural resource. It is the terminus of Main Street, a window onto the mighty Ohio River, the setting for a respected Museum of Art and Science and Transportation Museum, and the site of a riverboat casino with restaurants, entertainment, hotel, and riverfront open space.

The riverboat is a tourism magnet and economic development resource for the city. Its revenues have directly benefited parks and open space, including recent and ongoing major improvements to the riverfront. Those improvements include the renovation of the subject of this narrative, the Esplanade and Dress Plaza into a vibrant civic space.

The landscape architect was lead planning and design firm for the two integrated projects, with separate supporting consultant teams for each, for surveying and engineering. The landscape architect developed the final construction documents and cost estimates for the Esplanade and its extensions north and south. This Downtown Pigeon Creek Greenway creates an integrated civic space and bicycle/pedestrian system along the entire downtown Ohio River waterfront of Evansville and sets the stage for the greenway's extension beyond towards Newburgh.

Design activities consisted of conceptual planning through design development of all elements, including grading, drainage, pavement, furnishing, fixtures, and plantings. In addition, the landscape architect prepared an interpretive graphics narrative that chronicles the history of the Ohio River at Evansville.

This section of trail, connecting downtown to Sunset Park and Sunrise Park, is concrete edge-banded and paved with hexagonal asphalt pavers at trailhead entries and street adjacencies, and is fully ADA compliant. Major constraints included the existing earthen flood protection levees. The design team worked to transform the rip-rap lined bank of the existing levee to an attractive and accessible lawn.

Where the trail extends southeast through the Museum District, levee-bank overlooks similar to those of the Esplanade create river-viewing pockets of calm off the trail. A trailhead gathering space occurs between the historic Pagoda and the Museum. Wayfinding signage and interpretive graphics extend the Esplanade's historic timeline. Collaboration with a sculptor led to a sculptural metal fence and gates for the Museum’s sculpture garden. Unattractive riprap along the earthen levee has been replaced with mown turf slope between the trail and a stabilizing curvilinear gabion protection line, that essentially rebuilt the existing levee. The latter delineates a powerful landform visible across the arc of the riverfront.

The Landscape Architect designed this greenway to not only connect the destinations listed above but to interact with them. This was accomplished through the incorporations of such features as:

• Overlooks at Sunset Park and the Museum with elegantly detailed limestone benches, providing views to the Ohio River, and pausing pockets along the trail.
   

• Renovation of an existing parking lot and Gazebo area at Sunset Park as a park room while a resolving existing drainage problems.
   

• Construction of a Sculptural Fence, designed by local artist Bill Leth, along the trail adjacent to the Museum that replaces a barbed wire security fence.
   

• Development of an outdoor plaza trailhead and seating areas at the Visitor Center, designed to resolve existing drainage problems and provide a location for outdoor activities.
   

• Interpretive signage throughout the 1.7 miles of trail, to inform and educate trail users and visitors about the destination along the trail and Evansville’s Riverfront History.

The landscape architect helped create a trail that not only connected numerous destinations, but also developed a level of activity, energy and excitement along the Evansville Riverfront that has not been seen for decades.