Downtown Beaverton is eyeing a greener, cooler future, and city officials are betting that a revived creek can help get it there. On Saturday, the city rolled out fresh renderings for “Creekside Connections,” an ambitious plan to pull Beaverton Creek out from behind parking lots and buildings and put it back at the center of neighborhood life.
The new images show a more shaded, leafy downtown with wider tree canopy, vegetated creek buffers and a network of car-free paths tying together housing, jobs, parks and transit. City staff are pitching the concept as a climate- and habitat-focused strategy to improve water quality, reconnect floodplains and take some heat off the urban core, according to the City of Beaverton.
The post also name-checks regional partners Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District, Metro and Community Partners for Affordable Housing, and links the vision to ongoing downtown redevelopment work.
Funding and timeline
For now, Creekside Connections is still in the pre-development stage. City documents show Beaverton has secured a $215,000 Department of Land Conservation and Development grant to cover conceptual design. Staff are also preparing an application to Metro’s Large-Scale Community Visions program, with applications due at the end of May, per the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee agenda…