Ivy Road Corridor Stream Restoration Planning and Design

Stream restoration and stormwater best management practices are integrated into plans to redevelop a major gateway at the University of Virginia.

The University of Virginia’s (UVA) Ivy Road corridor serves as a gateway to the campus and a critical link between UVA’s North, Arts, and historic Central Grounds. Recognizing the site’s potential to deliver even greater benefits to the University and its community, the University and the University of Virginia Foundation launched a comprehensive planning and design initiative for the site.

Biohabitats served as a key member of the project team, which was led by DumontJanks. Biohabitats provided environmental and stormwater management planning and early phase design to support the University’s goals to redevelop the corridor in a way that would enhance safety and connectivity, provide an opportunity for interaction with the broader Charlottesville community, improve aesthetics by screening an adjacent garage, accommodate transportation, and optimize economically viable development.

Biohabitats began by assessing the site’s hydrology and ecology. Based on the assessment, Biohabitats prepared conceptual recommendations for improving stormwater management while enhancing ecology, aesthetics, and accommodating space programming. This involved restoring and relocating a stream to accommodate a new hotel, creating a large open water feature that will serve as a gathering space while also helping to retain, filter, and treat stormwater, and routing offsite runoff around the site to alleviate flooding impacts to the roadways. Biohabitats also met with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the US Army Corp of Engineers regulators to review alternative design approaches, and worked closely with the design team and UVA staff to refine the designs to meet the multiple project objectives.