For immediate release: February 2, 2006

Design Workshop's 2006 internship charrette to help revitalize downtown Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — Planning and design firm Design Workshop, Inc., is partnering with the Salt Lake Downtown Alliance, an affiliate of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, to host a student internship that will help assist with a downtown regional visioning effort.

The 11-day charrette, which will run from May 31 through June 10, 2006, at the firm’s Salt Lake City office, is seeking 16 of the nation’s top urban design, planning, landscape architecture, environmental planning, real estate and business students to formulate strategies for transforming a 40-block section of downtown. The charrette and presentations to local government officials and the public will be followed by a 10-week internship in one of Design Workshop’s seven U.S. offices.

Salt Lake City lies at the center of the country’s most explosive growth region. It features unrivaled proximity of urban environs with national forests and open lands. It has one of the country’s most ambitious city-centered mass transit programs, including commuter rail and light-rail service. The downtown is also the target of both a significant rail-yard redevelopment proposal and a $500 million retail-driven redevelopment. Numerous studies have been done on revitalization of downtown, and these will serve as resources that student interns can use to synthesize a single holistic vision.

“We are really looking to inform this experience with a fairly broad-based platform,” says Chuck Ware, a principal with the firm’s Salt Lake office. These include insights into local economic conditions as well as Mayor Rocky Anderson’s vigorous environmental programs, for which he won a World Leadership Award in December. Ware says that part of the challenge will be the wide streets, huge blocks and closed malls typical of downtown, elements that make it challenging to create pedestrian interest.
Design Workshop, Inc., brings special expertise to issues of urban revitalization, which it is currently helping achieve with redevelopment projects in Denver (Riverfront Park), Las Vegas (Union Park) and South Lake Tahoe, California (Park Avenue).

Since 1985, Design Workshop’s internship program has attracted gifted scholars of landscape architecture, architecture, urban design and planning from all over the world. In the past, Design Workshop’s student charrettes have dealt with rail-yard conversions in Calgary, Alberta, and Phoenix, Arizona, and light-rail planning between Colorado ski areas and Denver. Last year’s internship crafted a three-part plan for creating gateways, mixed-use development and gathering spaces along a major highway corridor in South Lake Tahoe, California. The final plan is available on Design Workshop’s website at http://www.designworkshop.com/careers/summer2005summary.html.
Design Workshop attracted more than 200 applicants for the 2005 internship. Students interested in applying for the Sal Lake City charrette are encouraged to visit the Internships page on the Design Workshop website to review the application requirements.

Founded in 1969, Design Workshop practices sustainable design and planning on sites ranging from urban infill, parks and open-space projects to brownfield redevelopment and resorts. The firm, which has seven offices in the United States, has received more than 90 awards for design and planning, including a 2003 Charter Award from the Congress for New Urbanism for its rail-yard conversion in downtown Denver.