Why the Name “Turtle Place”?

There’s a good reason why Vancouver’s downtown is located where it is. This rich, fertile area has been a population center for thousands of years. Before the Americans, Hudson’s Bay Company prospered here. And before Europeans settled the area, it was a gathering place for native peoples, and known as “Turtle Place.” The general area called Turtle Place enveloped the entire Vancouver National Historic Reserve and extended west across Interstate 5, into what is now downtown Vancouver. Turtle Place was used by the indigenous peoples to access the Columbia River for fishing and gathering food, as a temporary residence and as a trading place. The Klickitat Trail, an important native trade route, which traveled overland to connect The Dalles upriver on the Columbia and Yakima beyond, had its southern terminus in the vicinity of Turtle Place.

Turtle Place was selected as the name of this plaza to broaden the connection between past and present and to build on the idea of living in harmony with our natural environment. Living sustainably requires that we husband our resources, conserving where possible, reducing consumption, while recycling and re-using resource materials already in play. Look around Turtle Place for examples of how these sustainable practices can be applied in a variety of ways in our daily life.

As we move into a new dimension of human history and see our downtown prosper and embrace the future, we also honor the past, learn from and reuse it to create what will come next.

Mural Planning and Prep

If you walked by the wall at 704 Main last week, this is the scene you might have seen:

Our mural painter Guy Drennan is getting things ready to start in on the mural designed by Tribe2 Studios. Power washing the wall, like you see here, preps the wall so the paint will stick and look its best when applied.

It also makes for a great talking point if you see this when you’re heading out to lunch!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll get to see the wall transformed, from what you see above…to this:

Work Begins at Turtle Place

It might not look like much just yet, but the temporary sign at Turtle Place, put in place this weekend, means things are moving forward!

Stop by to check it out, and get a glimpse of the plaza before it’s transformed.

So…Why the Lawn Chair Guy?

Vancouver’s Downtown Association’s project manager for Turtle Place is board member Carl Dobbs (above), who plans to be on-site throughout the project’s construction—not just to oversee the build, but to answer questions from the public and let people know that this will be a space for them — a place to gather, and a place that they can use as inspiration for their own sustainable efforts.

It’s a tough job to hang out in the sunshine all day, but if anyone can do it, Carl can!

Turtle Place Emerges as a Model of Downtown Beauty and Sustainability

Welcome to the Lawn Chair Guy’s blog of updates, progress pictures, and random musings about Vancouver’s Downtown Association’s Turtle Place project.

In the not-too-distant past, this spot was a transit mall filled with idling buses and clouds of exhaust fumes, populated by people on their way to somewhere else. Yesterday, it was an uninviting slab of concrete.

But soon, thanks to a cooperative effort led by Vancouver’s Downtown Association, the former bus stop at downtown Vancouver’s Seventh Street, in between Washington and Main Streets, will begin a transformation.

Welcome to Turtle Place, a model of sustainability and a vision of urban beauty
that is being created in this plaza where C-Tran operated a transit center for more than two decades.

Watch the video below to see a “fly-through” rendering of the plaza by Turtle Place designers Harper Houf Peterson Righellis HHPR Engineering