A write-up from one of S2o Design’s happy whitewater parks users.  We’ve heard from many different users who ended up loving a whitewater park:

I’m Michelle Kvanli, one of the founders of Red River Racing in San Marcos, Texas.  We are a non-profit organization that works to get people into kayaks—some for the purposes of going on to be champion racers, some for the joy, challenge, and therapy (yes therapy) of being in a kayak.  We run trips around the country and internationally, but base out of San Marcos.  Our property abuts the San Marcos river just downstream from downtown.

The Rio Vista dam has always been a high-point of our program.  It was a simple single drop structure until it failed in 2006.  We called our friend Scott Shipley, now of S2o Design and Engineering to come work with the City to fix the dam and preserve our best whitewater.  S2o did more than that and created an all-access whitewater park that is used by thousands of people every year.  These folks swim, wade, inner-tube and kayak at the site on a daily basis.  In fact, the new park was seeing so much additional usage that they added lights so we could paddle at night.

The park has had a tremendous effect on our program and on our town.  We now have slalom gates at the Whitewater Park year round.  This has allowed us to host national-level slalom events such as the 2008 Olympic Trials qualifier.  It has also supported a growing group of active racers that use the site.  We also have play boating and surfing at the park.  The draw from this park has had a tremendous effect on our town.  Talk about economic impact!  The park is used by so many people that the City hired additional rangers to help monitor the crowds.

The park has also allowed us to play a key role in the Wounded Warrior Program.  Red River works with returning vets who have been injured or who are still working to integrate themselves back into being home.  We work with them to get them into boats and challenge them—both on the water and off—in an effort to help them find some stability in their own lives.  This is a very exciting program both for our City and our Country so I am excited that the San Marcos Whitewater Park allows us to make this happen.

–Michelle Kvanli, Co-Director, Red River Racing

Recommendations:

Bring in a designer like S2o who will think of your park holistically—not just as a whitewater park.  Scott’s work to remove the concrete walls and create access for people of all ability levels adds a lot to how this park is used.

Design for all types of visitors—not just top level kayakers.

Create spaces for events and for programs—these are what provide the most impact to your “dry side” community!

Welcome everyone to your park including the inner-tubers and waders and BBQ’rs.  This is not just about top level niche athletes!

Physical Modeling of Hydraulic Structures

S2o specializes in the physical modeling of whitewater parks and the Physical Modeling of other Hydraulic Structures.  Here is a summary from one of our clients about the Physical Modeling of the London 2012 Olympic Venue at the Lee Valley Whitewater Centre:

Physical Modeling of the London Whitewater Canoe Slalom Venue

I own and operate an engineering firm in the United Kingdom.  Ostensibly, I would be a competitor to S2o as I also plan, design, and implement whitewater parks.  Instead, however, we tend to partner on projects around the world.  S2o’s business model, much like my own, is unique.  We are engineering firms that are formulated to fit seamlessly within a larger design team.  On many of our projects we team with local site/civil engineers as well as contractors, electrical engineers, architects or whatever the case may bring.  Our role—and one that S2o manages very well as well—is to make that larger team stronger and to bring unique expertise in white water design.

S2o and I have worked together on several projects including the London Olympic Park located in Lee Valley near London.  The London Park was a rush project as, by the time we became involved, construction had already started and design work had lagged.  What was needed was a two-part team, one to manage the project from the UK side—going to meetings, understanding client needs, and coordinating deliverables.  From the other side we needed hard data and we needed it quickly.  We needed computer and physical models that would substantiate our design and design changes and we needed tools that would convince the Olympic Development Authority and its stakeholders that these whitewater channels would meet, or exceed, their specifications.  What we needed was a professional design team that was going to get this job done, and done accurately and quickly.

As a team we hit the ground running and worked seamlessly to create what has been universally called the “best, and most modern, whitewater park in the world”.  S2o’s design process, advanced software, and modeling techniques meshed seamlessly with our own such that, though we live on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we were able to collaborate effortlessly.  Within three weeks we had created the necessary computer models to show the client that we needed a physical model, within six more weeks we had designed and built the world’s largest physical model ever constructed for a whitewater park.  It was a 1:10 Froude Scale model constructed at S2o’s facility in Boulder, CO (USA) and it gave us a place where the British Canoe Union, the Olympic Delivery Authority, and other stakeholders could wade into the future Olympic Channel and measure and evaluate the velocities, the waves, the eddies, and other whitewater characteristics with their own hands.  That one model was all it took to move a project from stalemate, to approved design by all parties.  Within 12 more months we would paddle on that same course as it was being approved by the International Canoe Federation for competition for the next games.  This was a project where the Physical and Computer Models—and the professionalism with which they were made—defined the project.

Recommendations:

Start with the best design team you can find—one that has completed projects accurately, on time, and to the expected standard.  You don’t want to change mid-stream and expect a rush job.

All great whitewater parks are team efforts.  You need to pick a whitewater design team that works well as a team.  The best metric of this is “how many projects have you finished recently?”  If they’re getting projects done, they are good teammates.

Etc.

Part of the process:  Michael Williams, Design Process

A quick discussion from Michael Williams about the process of Designing Whitewater Parks.

Liquid Design was the project lead for the design team on the Charlotte Whitewater Park.  We were directly responsible for the project management and coordination of over 24 various consultants and specialty consultants for the design and construction administration of the U.S. National Whitewater Center located in Charlotte, North Carolina.  We were also the master planner for the 350 acre site and the architect of record for all building structures.

These projects are mammoth undertakings.  Project management is the key element.  You must have someone efficiently guiding the process that has experience in leading it and you need team members that can work as a part of that team—doing their part on time and helping the remainder of the team to do their parts.  The reality of this project type is that not everyone truly knows what the end result will be.  For example the Pump consultant is good at what they do on a daily basis—they move the water from the bottom pond to the top.  However, they really don’t understand what that means when you have to use the pump system to move over 1,000 people on rafts.  That is why experience in this project type is so critical.  This process is about understanding the holistic design solution and ensuring that the client gets what he’s paying for that is so important.

One consultant that you do not want designing in the dark is the whitewater engineer.  That is why S2O was a key part of the process and a part of our lead design team.  They understood the holistic design solution and exactly how the whitewater components fit into it.  From day one they helped shape and mold design decisions that made the product better.   Their high-tech team provided not only drawings that actually could be built but their design solutions worked, critical for clients who are ready to start producing revenue.  Also, their use of state-of-the art and industry standard software allowed us to share design documents so that final assembly was easy, accurate and timely.

I was so impressed with S2O’s work ethic and creative vision that when they ask me to join their global team I signed up without hesitation.  It didn’t hurt that I love this unique project type and working with S2O allows me to work with talented individuals who share this same passion.

Michael Williams

Liquid Design / S2o

The Future for Whitewater Parks, both in-stream / river diversions and man-made “superparks”, is bright.  The following is a small list of what I think will be key elements for future whitewater park development;

• Incorporation of Green Technologies / Sustainability into the design—this is the wave of the future.
• Interwoven in the Existing Urban Landscape to create a lifestyle park that accommodates outdoor enthusiasts in an urban setting.
• Adaptable and updateable innovation:  The technology of the sports themselves will evolve and become more dynamic.  Systems like the new Rapidbloc (rapidblocs.com) system allow for state-of-the-art channels far into the future.

Uniqueness:  Just by the nature of competition the parks will have to have the longest, fastest, and biggest of something for customer retention.

Discovering the Uncompahgre River Corridor as a community amenity

S2o has led, or has been a team member, on a number of river corridor master planning efforts.  These projects serve to plan a corridor respecting the river’s natural morphology, and the habitat that it fosters, and serves to integrate the community with this river in a way that allows for recreation, access, smart development, and the preservation of beautiful natural areas, amongst other priorities.  This is the story of one of our projects as told by the team we worked with:

The City of Montrose is located along the Uncompahgre River.  Historically, this City supported agricultural and industrial land uses. To this day, gravel mining, for example, remains a significant source of income, supporting the growth of surrounding mountain towns and resorts.  Over the past decade, commercial and residential housing developments have in-filled closer to the river, largely isolating the river from public access. Montrose responded to community interests in protecting and enhancing the Uncompahgre as a public amenity by investing in planning with the support of Great Outdoor Colorado lottery funding. Currently, the river is only occasionally floated due to limited public ownership of the adjacent property and lack of access points. Montrose is just a pass-through for those visiting the famed M-wave on the Gunnison River outfall. Our project was tasked with improving public access and usage along this river corridor.

As a landscape architect and principal with DHM Design, I led the effort to prepare a master plan that describes a vision for the future of the Uncompahgre Riverway through Montrose by building on the existing natural characteristics, urban connections and broad community support. I hired Scott Shipley to examine the potential for the river to host whitewater activities. Scott found that the river characteristics support a variety of potential features and that the flows regulated by releases through the upstream irrigation system and reservoir provide consistent levels late in the season when many other rivers are low. Our team was also augmented by Walsh Environmental for ecological assessment and RPI Consulting for community input facilitation.

Scott provided a well attended presentation of whitewater parks around the world and the benefits they bring. The Montrose community showed tremendous interest in having their own whitewater park, not only for their own recreational use, but for events and spectators. Montrose supported the idea of a whitewater park drawing tourism and awareness of the larger river corridor as part of their identity. After examining the corridor with us, Scott described a number of possibilities ranging from family friendly tubing features to a competition worthy challenge course.

Master planning for a community is not easy—it can be especially difficult when including a dynamic amenity such as a whitewater park.  These parks have the potential to host extremely well-attended events.  As a potential draw to many people, each chosen location must fit within the community infrastructure, anticipating the need for vehicle and pedestrian access, parking, and restrooms. River banks can be enhanced to provide paths, hardened points for access and informal seating through the deliberate placement of boulders. Within the larger community, Montrose is particularly interested in providing a draw that supports river oriented cafes and retail shops.

With many features possible, the challenge is bringing them within reach of tight budgets. Our team identified an ideal opportunity by selecting an existing park to include our future Whitewater Park.  In this way, with relatively low investment, whitewater elements could be introduced without re-investing in infrastructure and parking.  This locationquickly gained the benefit of greater visibility and increased tourism that would in turn support additional investments. As part of a collaborative effort, the master planning process started discussions with the water district, Bureau of Reclamation, City engineering, and other agencies that have the potential to partner for the replacement of aging structures in a way that weaves whitewater features into a solution that will have many benefits for this little City that reach far beyond the scope of creating a simple play-wave.

Lessons:

Design of whitewater parks must consider potential impacts to the surrounding community in terms of traffic, access, parking, and public access.

By drawing attention to the whitewater features, awareness of the entire river corridor is gained, supporting investment in the overall health of the river system.

Partnerships hold great potential to bring whitewater elements within reach with cost sharing.

Collaboration with the widest range of river stakeholders is critical to gaining support for a successful project.

I initially contacted S2o Design and Engineering about helping me to create a vision for a pumped Whitewater Park in the Southwest.  We accomplished this task with such a large degree of success that it has opened a tremendous can of worms down here.  The site plan created by S2o is so attractive that we literally have people from the surrounding Towns and Cities trying to get us to move our project to their location.  S2o identified our customer base and designed a profitable concept around our target audience—this is a project that everyone in our region believes is a clear success.

We are now in the process of working with our local City to try and solicit funding for the project.  We are targeting funds from a variety of sources including local government support, state and federal grants, and investor financing.  We expect our final funding portfolio to be a mixture of these options.

As a part of the process of soliciting funding we have needed to know three key elements related to the economic impacts of whitewater parks:

The first question was, “how many people in our area like to raft and how many of these folks are likely to come visit our site if we build this thing?”  In order to understand the answer to this question we commissioned a Market Analysis from S2o Design and Engineering.

The second question we needed to know the answer to was, “If the expected number of people show up, will our venue be profitable?”   In order to understand the answer to this question we commissioned S2o to undertake a Business and Market Analysis.

The last question we needed answered is, “how will the visitors that come to my park affect the economy of the surrounding city and region?”  Our host City wanted to understand these effects so that they could judge how much they were willing to contribute to making this project happen.  In order to address this question we had S2o undertake an Economic Impact assessment.

We had a lot riding on the results of these studies and were being held to a very high standard.  The State commissioned a large and well known independent accounting firm to review our business model and market analysis prior to analyzing our grant application.  This accounting firm not only reviewed the numbers but applied several sensitivity tests to see how robust the business model was in the face of lower attendance or lower price point.  S2o’s Business model and market analysis passed with flying colors.  The accounting firm did not suggest a single revision.

The economic impact study did even more for our case.  Again, it was a well documented study based on actual user data from our region.  When the City’s economic team took it apart—checking the source data for content and validity and applying their own analysis to check our results—and came back with the same comments as the state:  “it looks good”.

My name is John Brennan and I’m the local coach here in Durango.  I’m also the guy that traditionally manages the club’s efforts to maintain our whitewater park.  Historically we did all of this work ourselves but we have been seeking out a way to get one of the experienced design teams involved in creating some specific play features.  In an effort to make this happen I have been working with the Animas River Task Force here in Durango to get buy-in as well as to get the design moved forward.

I know that Brian Brown has told you a little bit about how our process got started (link) so I wanted to focus on the design part of this process.  As Brian mentioned, we focused our design efforts on forming a task force that was filled with a variety of characters representing a number of different interest groups related to this project.  The task force included fishermen and environmental groups as well as rafters, kayakers, and members from the interested public.  The idea was to get input from each of these groups in order to move a project forward that benefited the most people.

Once we brought S2o on board as our whitewater design team we were pleasantly surprised to find that they were focusing their efforts on working with us.  Rather than presenting a design for us to approve or disapprove they included us in the process.  We were able to tour various sites along the river with their design team and give input into the things we liked and didn’t like.  We also worked with them to record the things that we found important—both good and bad—about how the park should look and act.  S2o then included us in the design process by articulating our “likes” and “dislikes” for the project and then providing a variety of design alternatives that best fit these objectives.  We worked with them to shape these many designs into one design that we all liked.  It was like we were able to watch the design take shape in front of us.  It was a process that made sense to us, as kayakers, and also to the other people in the room.  It was a design that we could all agree on.

The team also worked with local permitting people right from the start.  This helped our task force a lot because it allowed us to make informed decisions about the whitewater park.  Sometimes we would favor one site over another, or one type of wave over another, but S2o Design was able to tell us how that affected permitting requirements or water availability.  In the end we were able to be a part of a process that was not only attractive to our task force members, but something that they were able to get built within our budget.  This was a process that not only met our needs, but also moved the process quickly towards completion.

Recommendations:

Insist on being a part of the process—the last thing you want is to have a designer drop a design on your table and tell you this is your best option.

Bring all the river users to the table through a committee or through public meetings.  You want everyone to take a stake in creating your whitewater park.

Pick a team that is not only knowledgeable, but that can work in front of a crowd.  Getting buy-in from our community has been one of our toughest hurdles and having a team that could helpus to educate and include our community has been a real benefit.