We are proud to announce that the Kingdom Trails Network Capacity Study has taken home another award: the Vermont Planner’s Association 2023 Project of the Year!

This Network Capacity Study stands out as one of our favorite recent projects because its unique challenges were so well suited for SE Group’s strengths and services: recreation planning, visitation/use analysis, economic development, land planning, and community engagement.

Kingdom Trails are a premiere mountain biking destination that attracts over a hundred thousand visitors annually and generates millions of dollars in economic spending in adjacent communities.  However, this popularity has brought distinct challenges, and these same communities are now encountering traffic, overburdened resources, and conflicts with private landowners.

Kingdom Trails Association retained SE Group, in collaboration with Stantec consulting, to address some of these capacity issues and enhance the network’s positive impact on host communities. The year-long planning process and capacity analysis centered on a robust engagement process that focused on developing alignment between residents’ and visitors’ interests – key given the trails’ access agreements with private landowners. The recommendations identify strategies to improve information access, disperse users, enhance road crossings, and develop more visitor support infrastructure such as a new Welcome Center and rider shuttle service.

For more details on the study, please visit the project’s Storymap: http://www.kingdomtrails.org/networkcapacity

The May issue of Ski Area Management magazine is out and we are pleased to report that it features not one but two articles from SE Group authors.

Director of Resort Planning Claire Humber‘s piece is titled “Investing in Retention of Interest.” Leaning on her deep expertise in strategic planning, Claire encourages ski area owners and operators to look beyond the traditional ROI (return on investment) to consider another ROI when planning capital expenditures: retention of interest. These are often strategies that transcend the timeframe of traditional modeling – and are critical to sustainable growth in this increasingly complex and competitive market.

SE Group had a strong showing at the 2023 Vermont Public Places Awards ceremony in May, taking home 3 of the 7 awards available.

Creating public spaces that enrich communities through connections to the outdoors is the foundation of SE Group’s work. That’s why we are particularly proud of these awards, which recognize a wide variety of project-types that promote public uses and benefits here in the backyard of our Burlington office. The VT Public Spaces Awards are hosted every other year by the Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Vermont Planners Association, the Vermont Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the Vermont Urban and Community Forest Program.

This year’s honorees included:

• Missisquoi Valley Rail Trails Marketing, Branding, & Wayfinding Project (Honor Award), which aimed to increase trail awareness for both local residents and potential visitors, enhance wayfinding and trail information, and better connect trail activity to local businesses for the popular MVRT trail. Key project deliverables included new a logo/branding guide, a redesigned website, a signage master plan, trail maps, and an interactive mobile app. The Path Less Pedaled also produced a video to explain the project and highlight this excellent recreational resource – be sure to check it out!
• The Kingdom Trails Network Capacity Study (Honor Award), a year-long planning process intended to address issues surrounding the capacity of the internationally renowned Kingdom Trails network and enhance the network’s positive impact on host communities and private landowners.
• Founder’s Hall and Rowland Courtyard at Burr & Burton Academy (Merit Award), which transforms the school campus by creating a new academic center and a central outdoor courtyard for the school community.  The courtyard successfully ties the knot amongst the upper campus buildings, celebrates the local history using marble from the Dorset Quarry as a key design element, and emphasizes green infrastructure for stormwater treatment as an educational opportunity.  The courtyard was designed to create spaces for large events and more intimately scaled spaces for smaller gatherings and outdoor lectures.  The project is a win-win as it delivers great awareness to the school community about prioritizing “green” public space over a parking lot. This project was designed in collaboration with KATO and ZGF Architects.

On April 7, our forest health and fuels practice received exciting news: the U.S. Forest Service- Tahoe National Forest announced the public release of the final Environmental Impact Statement (Final EIS) and the draft Record of Decision (Draft ROD) for the North Yuba Landscape Resilience Project.

The North Yuba landscape (CA), a critical watershed that supports substantial forest habitat, high biodiversity, and excellent recreation opportunities, is one of the most at-risk areas for catastrophic wildfire in the US. With this Final EIS and Draft ROD published, the Tahoe National Forest, in partnership with the National Forest Foundation, is one step closer to having the ‘green light’ to be begin its first phase of vegetation and fuels management implementation projects for this 275,000-acre landscape. These fuels reduction efforts would significantly lower wildfire risk to protect communities, while also preserving forest health and habitats. A Final ROD is expected this summer.

SE Group supported the development of the Final EIS and Draft ROD in partnership with the Forest Service and Ascent, the third-party NYLRP NEPA lead. This was a big effort from our team, led by Ashley Smith, Tyler Ford, and Catherine Winnop; the sheer size of the North Yuba landscape made this a highly complex project.

For more details: $117 million awarded to reduce wildfire risk on the North Yuba Landscape

Affordable housing is an acute issue for mountain towns from coast to coast. Over the past few years, SE Group’s Community Planning team has expanded its practice to include housing-specific planning, led by Senior Community Planner Gabrielle Voeller, AICP. Considering our deep experience working with these communities – as well as our expertise in policy review and analysis, site design, and engagement – this has been a natural extension of our work.

In March, the Leadville Lake County Regional Housing Authority (Colorado) was awarded $1M to begin the development of affordable housing by the Department of Local Affairs, a state agency. SE Group’s feasibility study for this project (in collaboration with partners Tetra Tech and SHAPE Architecture Studio) was an essential part of the successful grant application. In addition to assessing three sites in Leadville for affordable housing, our project team lead bi-lingual community engagement on the housing stressors in the community and the types of housing that are most needed (size, unit type, # of beds).

Strategic housing plans that are rooted in community engagement are critical to the growth mountain and gateway towns – and we are excited to continue to build upon this practice with our partners in these communities.

For more details: Housing authority approved for $1M | | leadvilleherald.com

SE Group is proud to be a part of a team that recently won Premier Hospitality Magazine‘s 2022 Hospitality Design Award for ‘Best Event Space’ for the Rosebrook Lodge at Omni Hotels & Resorts’ Bretton Woods ski area at Mt. Washington. The 16,500 square foot lodge, which officially opened at the end of 2020, is perched near the top of the mountain, offering spectacular views across the Presidential Range. Skiers and hikers can easily access the year-round lodge via the Skyway Gondola, which SE Group also designed!

SE Group’s teams collaborated to ensure the lodge fit seamlessly within the larger Bretton Woods ecosystem, in addition to designing all of the plaza and terrace spaces. Our project partners included Bull Stockwell Allen (building design), TruexCullins Architecture + Interior Design (interior design), Horizons Engineering (civil engineering), and MWHarris Lighting Studio (light design). Congrats to all of the partners on this impressive space!

You can read more about the award in Premier Hospitality’s fall feature.  The next time you visit Mount Washington, make sure to get a meal at the Switchback Grille and enjoy this amazing setting!

On Saturday, December 17 2022, Palisades Tahoe officially opened the Base to Base Gondola, which connects Palisades Olympic Valley with Alpine Meadows. The new combined area makes Palisades Tahoe the largest resort in California, and the third largest in North America.  You can read about the gondola’s opening in the Tahoe Daily Tribune’s article.

SE Group is proud to have led the mountain planning and NEPA environmental analysis for this groundbreaking project, alongside Leitner-Poma Of America (lift design and engineering), Ascent Environmental (CEQA environmental analysis), Psomas (civil engineering), DOA Architecture (structure design), and RRC Associates (market research). During the course of this nearly decade-long project, SE Group analyzed more than 40 scenarios to connect the two valleys, ensuring a solution that was both environmentally sensitive and economically viable.

The benefits of the Base to Base Gondola are many, but crucially 1) it takes cars off of the chronically congested Highway 89; 2) it improves accessibility to the excellent beginner terrain at Alpine Meadows; and 3) it links the Alpine Meadows terrain to the robust accommodation options at Palisades Olympic Valley.

SE Group’s Minnesota Discovery Center Master Plan project has received the Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (VTASLA) 2022 Award of Excellence for Planning, Research, and Analysis, the competition’s highest honor. The biennial Awards Program honors works in landscape architectural design, planning, communications, or research completed by members of VTASLA or for projects completed within Vermont by members of out-of-state American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) members. The awards were judged by an impartial jury of five landscape architects from the Alabama ASLA Chapter.

The Minnesota Discovery Center is a nonprofit museum and event complex in Chisholm, Minnesota that tells the story of the region’s mining history. SE Group was hired to develop a plan to reinvigorate the Center’s amenities and capitalize on the region’s shift to an outdoor recreation economy – while staying true to their original mission.

Senior Landscape Architect Patrick Olstad and Senior Recreation Planner Andrew Pollak-Bruce, CPRP led the master planning process. The result was a strong demonstration of SE Group’s multidisciplinary team collaboration, delivering a site-specific design that promotes a more engaging and cohesive family-friendly experience, with a visual character rooted in the local landscape. With a focus on revenue generation opportunities, the plan also includes financial modeling and implementation recommendations to support the long-term financial sustainability of the Center.

For more information on this year’s VTASLA winners, please visit their Awards page.