Industry Experts
Meet Our Panel
Thank you for joining us for our Trail Oriented Design event! Learn more about our panelists + moderator, below:
Moderator
Chuck Flink
Charles A. “Chuck” Flink is an award-winning planner, designer and author. Chuck is the founder, owner and President of Greenways Incorporated, a consulting firm located in Durham, North Carolina.
He is widely regarded as one of America’s leading greenway planners, having completed comprehensive greenway, trail and open space plans for more than 250 communities within 36 States and provided consulting services in Argentina, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Japan and St. Croix, USVI. Flink was elected to the American Society of Landscape Architects Council of Fellows in November 2003. He is the 2006 Distinguished Alumnus for the College of Design at North Carolina State University.
Panelist
Anthony Smithson
Anthony is the Managing Director of Construction with Grubb Ventures. He is responsible for the management of ongoing development and construction activities at Grubb, including many award-winning multi-family communities and mixed use commercial projects.
He has over 20 years experience managing an array of investment, building design and construction projects. Anthony has worked with Grubb since 2011 and has an MBA from Babson College in Wellesley, MA.
Panelist
Jackie Turner
Jackie Turner is a planning and engagement professional with decades of experience with projects for communities, including trail oriented projects. Through her work with Turner Consulting, she provides communities with the tools to plan and design healthy, livable, and engaging environments.
In the past three years, JTC partnered with numerous firms to provide a tailored blend of community engagement services for projects as diverse as parks, road corridor redesign, comprehensive land use planning, transit, and green stormwater infrastructure. She continues to increase awareness and participation for all residents and stakeholders in a manner that is accessible, as changes are occurring in their communities.
Jackie is also a board member with WakeUp Wake County and the Raleigh Public Art and Design.
Panelist
Spencer Finch
Spencer is a Principal with Alta Planning and Design with over two decades of experience in both the consulting and public/non-profit sectors. He brings distinctive multidisciplinary skills in transportation engineering, Complete Streets, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure design.
With a focus on environmental engineering and sustainable infrastructure, Spencer provides strategic guidance to help communities plan and design healthy active transportation networks. Spencer also specializes in grant writing and grant management, resiliency planning and retrofitting, and sustainability programs.
Panelist
Jonathan Freeze
Jonathan is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau. He has over 21 years of destination marketing industry-specific experience, and has provided executive leadership at both the Raleigh and Durham CVB.
While working at the CVB, he led the Bureau’s marketing and communications efforts to attract 17.9+ million visitors and harvest $2.9+ billion in direct visitor spending annually for Raleigh, N.C. Additionally, he helped lead a strategic marketing mix for the Raleigh market and carried out a research-based, data-driven destination marketing plan with supervised team of five marketing professionals and $1.2+ million departmental budget.
Panelist
Lisa Schiffbauer
Lisa is an Experienced Project Manager with 20+ years of municipal and private professional experience. She has a background in project management, process design, delivery of capital improvement projects, civil/site development, landscape design, arboriculture, land acquisition, designing strategic goals and initiatives, generating and building stakeholder relationships. Lisa has worked with the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department as the Senior Engineering Supervisor since 2014.
Featured locations + Support
Greenway Tour
Board chair, Oaks and Spokes. Associate Director WakeUp Wake County
Nick Neptune
Designer II, Toole Design
Sarah Johnson
Engineer II, Toole Design
Phil Veasley
Southeast Raleigh YMCA
Images Lisa Esterrich | RATIO
Trail Oriented Design, School, Community Space
Stop One
Purpose of the Project
Developed from the Purpose Built Communities model, the Southeast Raleigh YMCA and Southeast Raleigh Elementary School is a unique partnership between the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), the YMCA of the Triangle (YMCA), and the Southeast Raleigh Promise (SERP), sharing a mission to create a mixed-use “Beacon Site” that provides a destination while serving the needs of the community through affordable housing, a business incubator, healthy food and healthcare to serve as a catalyst for change with the goal of ending the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
The design provides an elementary school’s safety and security while making the full range of YMCA programs available to the surrounding residents in one unified, inviting, and community-focused structure. The school hosts a variety of outdoor learning and play spaces, as well as the school system’s only campus swimming pool to support experiential connections to nature and ensure that every student will learn to swim before they graduate from elementary school. This public-private partnership required a unique vision, purposeful communication, selfless collaboration, creativity, and resourcefulness from all participants.
Our RATIO landscape architecture group led the creation and implementation of a vision for the SE Raleigh YMCA and Elementary School site design with support from WithersRavenel (civil engineer) who led the master site plan development. Interactive workshops were conducted to bring stakeholders together to identify shared project goals and find consensus. The team envisioned blurring the line between indoor and outdoor spaces to unify and connect across barriers, be inclusive to all in providing opportunities to learn, play and be active in the landscape and connect to nature while supporting the needs of Southeast Raleigh families.
Local Context/Special Features
A courtyard is both the heart and a shared resource of the campus with a pedestrian promenade that creates unity and connection to the main building. Common play space is delineated by an undulating picket fence, softened by native grass plantings and reclaimed boulders. Users of all ages are engaged with a reading garden, orchard, reclaimed log steppers, a water pump, performance stage, community garden and story time terrace, complete with sculptures of Charlotte’s Web. At the end of the courtyard is a pedestrian spine connecting to additional play space, a multi-purpose field and outdoor classroom.
Trail Oriented Design, School, Community Space
Stop Two
Purpose of the Project
On October 17th, Raleigh held it’s first downtown open streets event, Stroll in the Streets. During the event, the 1.3-mile stretch along Lenoir Street and South Saunders Street between Chavis and Dix Parks was closed to traffic to allow for walking, biking, art and play stations, food trucks, and more! The intent of the activation was to envision the possibility for a “Strollway” connecting Chavis + Dix Park. This segment is the East-West connection and corridor for the East Coast Greenway and would provide an urban trail between these two destination parks.
Local Context/Special Features
A great deal of research, planning and community discussion have gone into envisioning an East Raleigh Heritage Walk to increase awareness of the area’s history and ongoing contribution to the evolution of downtown Raleigh. City partners, Celen Passalar and Kofi Boone at the North Carolina State University, College of Design, led efforts to publish South Park Heritage Walk Project: Educate, Preserve, Memorialize in 2014.
At the June 16, 2020 City Council meeting, staff presented, and Council approved a recommendation to reallocate funding to move forward with short-term improvements to connect John Chavis Memorial Park and Dorothea Dix Park. With an understanding of existing and planned transportation improvements in the area, staff identified Lenoir Street as the primary preferred bike and pedestrian connection, commonly referred to as the Chavis to Dix Strollway. Longer term, staff noted that improvements to Western Boulevard and Martin Luther King Boulevard as part of the Bus Rapid Transit project will provide another, more direct, connection between Dix Park and Chavis Park
Over the past year, staff from Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources; Transportation; and the Urban Design Center have been working together on a variety of initiatives. Within the past few months, the working group has expanded to include representatives from Oaks and Spokes, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, Shaw University and Citrix Cycle.
In March 2022, $3 million in federal funding was allocated toward completion of this project.
Update!
Raleigh Strollway
East Coast Greenway E-W Segment Through Downtown Raleigh
Trail Oriented Design, Community Space
Stop Three
Images Angela Hollowell | East Coast Greenway Alliance, Bike Bonanza 2021
Transfer Co Food Hall
Greenway Oriented Development
Purpose of the Project
Transfer Co. is Raleigh’s Food Hall, Market, and Gathering Place in Downtown Raleigh. The site was intentionally designed to tie into the greenway adjacent to the hall.
Housed in the historic Carolina Coach Garage and Shop, a five minute walk from Fayetteville Street, Transfer Co. offers 50,000+ SF of renovated warehouse and newly built space for food producers, makers, vendors, restaurateurs, their guests, and the local community.
Their mission is to be the gathering place where different communities can connect through food.
Local Context/Special Features
Transfer Co. Food Hall was designed to intentionally tie into the adjacent greenway.
Trail Oriented Development, Small Business
Program Highlight
Purpose of the Project
In in the late 1960s, Peacox opened to serve the Walnut Terrace and surrounding communities. Throughout its almost 60 year history as a storefront, east Raleigh families have shopped at this location for all their convenience needs.
Peacox Market is currently a vacant structure located in a food desert. A food deserts are considered geographic regions where access to fresh, quality, and affordable produce is limited due to the lack of grocery stores within a convenient traveling distance.
The future
Reopening in 2023!
Peacox Market is dreaming big. With your help they want to serve the community through food and quality family programming.
- Offering fresh produce
- Serving hot prepared foods (grilled cheese anyone?)
- Assisting with a community garden
- Participating in community events to build and maintain strong relationships
Thank you to our program participants + sponsors!
Sponsored By:
Supported By:
