Location

Akron, Ohio

IMPACT

Cost-effective green infrastructure elements are knitted into this urban neighborhood, providing co-benefits such as community gardens, redevelopment opportunities, symbiotic neighborhood programming and, most importantly, maintainable projects.

City of Akron Kelly (CSO Rack 3) Green Infrastructure Design

The Kelly (CSO Rack 3) Project evaluated 12 sites and designed five green infrastructure opportunities associated with the City of Akron’s Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Long-Term Control Plan and Integrated Plan, replacing a 2.3 MG concrete CSO basin with five neighborhood Stormwater Control Measures (SCMs) and upsized underflow pipe to Akron's Water Reclamation Facility.

Each design incorporates 10-year storm event capacity, climate change potential, maintenance measures, community comments and memories using mid-sized green infrastructure (GI). Designs included high-flow rate bioretention soils to manage more stormwater underground, improving infiltration and groundwater intake; multiple inspection ports; controlling manholes to manage the inflow of stormwater to each system; and educational signs. Detailed design includes full depth street reconstruction, partial depth street reconstruction, selective sewer separation, and detailed modeling.

  • Chittenden GI mimics a migrating monarch butterfly and includes underground storage covered with high flow rate planted bioretention.
  • Duane GI comprises four areas near Robinson CLC. At the school, an underground system attenuates stormwater (see no); between 5th and Duane is a bioretention with underground system (speak no); and 5th and Chittenden is a stormwater wetland with planted bioretention with underground system (hear no).
  • Kelly & 7th GI absorbs stormwater much like a fish absorbs water through gills. GI includes underground system covered with high flow rate planted bioretention.
  • Weeks GI embodies a “New Way to Work” to control CSOs, symbolic of how Akron has used invention to transform the local economy. GI includes a tiered infiltration gallery with underground storage.