“Vegetables on Broadway” In Kansas City, An Upside To The Economic Downturn – A Productive Landscape.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Berena Peña
760-966-6090
bpena@soilretention.com

(April 10, 2012 – CARLSBAD, CA) – When the real estate market crashed in 2008, DST Systems, a Kansas City based financial services technology provider had to shelve plans for a luxury condominium project on 1.4 acres the company owns in downtown Kansas City.

Given a large, bare plot of land with no imminent commercial development prospects, many companies might have simply seeded the lot and left it empty while waiting for a better market. Tom McDonnell, CEO of DST Systems wanted to do more.

With the city’s focus on storm water control, wastewater disposal and the rain gardens initiative, DST hired Architects from 360 Architecture, along with help from Associates at Vireo, a landscape architecture and planning firm and the engineering firm TapanAm to design a series of rain gardens and swales that could control storm water that fell on the site. The new project was named “18Broadway”.

18Broadway includes a series of rain gardens, swales, storm planters, wind turbine, underground cisterns, a mechanical shed and paths.

Soil Retention’s permeable, flexible and plantable concrete pavement system Drivable Grass® was used on all the paths and also in the demonstration gardens.

18 Broadway officially opened to the public in October 2010.

For further information and details about Drivable Grass®, including opportunities for storm water infiltration, bioretention and biofiltration, please visit our web site at soilretention.com or contact us at 800-346-7995.