Almono announces design team for plaza at Hazelwood Green

A Seattle-based landscape architecture firm will design a public plaza that will act as the welcoming spot for the 178-acre Hazelwood Green site on the Monongahela River.

Almono LLC, developer of the urban brownfield, announced this week that the firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol will design the two-acre plaza.

“Based on some of the work they’ve done, they best translated and interpreted our vision for the space,” said Rebecca Flora, founder of ReMake Group and project director for Hazelwood Green.

She said plans for 30 acres of open space include a riverfront park with running trails. While each parcel of open land will serve a different purpose, the goal of the plaza is to create a civic space where residents and visitors can mingle.

“It becomes the heart of the site,” Ms. Flora said. “It carries an important role as a melting pot of people from throughout the city, the neighborhood and people

living on site.”

In November, Almono received applications from 30 design firms. In January, eight finalists were asked to submit proposals for the plaza.

Ms. Flora said the decision to select GGN was largely a result of its commitment to sustainability and previous work, which includes the five-acre landscape design at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington D.C.

Jennifer Guthrie, a founding partner at GGN, said her group is deeply invested in the local histories of its projects. She noted that the site was once Native American land that later became the home of LTV Steel.

“Hazelwood Green meshes really well with the way we work and think,” she said.

Her firm will spend the next two months developing a conceptual map. She said an important component of landscape design is to find concepts that capture local history and evoke a feeling in people.

“The amazing thing is, there’s so much thinking and conceptual ideas that goes into it,” she said. “And though you may not understand the concepts, you should feel something when youmove through it.”