New city operations campus in Bend highlights preservation, demonstration garden and on‑site stormwater features

Mike Zabo, the project landscape architect, walked advisory members through the new 34‑acre operations campus design and landscaping approach. He said the design goal was to "disturb as little as possible, preserve as much as possible," and that roughly 73% of the site was preserved as natural area while 18% is planned for restoration and about 1% is the demonstration garden.

Mike described layout and operational constraints: large fleet and maintenance buildings drove grading and circulation decisions, and budget pressures limited some landscape elements. He said the overall project cost was large (about $130,000,000 for the campus as described in the presentation) while the landscape budget was less than 1% of that total, which required value engineering on some features.

The demonstration garden was presented as a compact, public‑facing space showing grouped plant palettes for very‑low, low and moderate water use; the design includes permeable pavers and a subsurface drip system for a small lawn area. Mike provided estimated annual water use by zone: lawn ~15,000 gallons; moderate planting ~11,000 gallons; low‑water zone ~5,500 gallons; xeric/tree irrigation ~1,000 gallons. He said the irrigation zones will be separately metered to measure real‑world performance.

Speakers also reviewed on‑site stormwater features: natural swales with check dams, rock berms and large detention areas where land allowed, plus infiltration fingers and structural‑soil/aggregate zones at parking stalls to support tree roots. Some higher‑cost items (for example SilvaCell tree pedestals) were value‑engineered out but structural soil and infiltration features remain.

Next steps: meeting participants were invited to walk the site to view landscape zones and stormwater features; staff asked for input on interpretive signage and public‑education opportunities when the demonstration garden is installed.