If family and friends are visiting for graduation weekend, enjoy a walk along the recently completed Creekwalk linking Armory Square and the Connective Corridor with the Inner Harbor of Onondaga Lake.  Winding through historic districts, past landmark buildings and innovative projects like Franklin Square, the Creekwalk was also the focus of a recent Scholarship in Action project by 38 Syracuse University VPA students who developed creative branding concepts for the City of Syracuse – NYS DOS project, unveiling the ideas last month at The Warehouse.

The students undertook the branding project through a course that is part of the College of Visual and Performing Art’s communications design program.  The Creekwalk already enjoys high visibility and usage since it opened last fall.  The 2.6 mile paved trail, which averages 13 feet wide, passes by The Warehouse, heading north along Onondaga Creek until it connects with the “Loop the Lake” Trail and the Erie Canalway Trail – intended to eventually connect Canal communities along New York’s 524-mile State Canal system.  The northern section of the Creekwalk along the Inner Harbor offers views of the Historic Barge Canal.  It’s an easy walk from Armory Square and The Warehouse to the Inner Harbor Amphitheater, offering exciting summer entertainment possibilities.

The Franklin Square section of the trail is particularly striking, both in terms of landscape design, as well as its historical context.  The area was an older industrial neighborhood that developed as a result of the salt industry around Onondaga Lake in the early 19th century.  After the Civil War, Franklin Square became an automobile production area – the home of the H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Company, which produced its renowned autos there from 1902 to 1934.  By the 1980s, times had changed, leaving behind more than one million square feet of empty brick warehouses, which have been tastefully redeveloped for mixed us residential and commercial.

In many ways, the Creekwalk reinforces the goals of the Connective Corridor as a transportation network that encourages walking, biking and other alternatives to automobiles, and as a pedestrian network that connects the urban core with neighborhoods, recreational space, and downtown work/live opportunities.  Like the Connective Corridor, the Creekwalk also incorporates green infrastructure as a key design element.  The City of Syracuse worked with Onondaga County to integrate components of green infrastructure such as porous asphalt and concrete pavement, vegetated swales and rain gardens.

Students working under the director of William Padgett, associate professor, catalyst art, design, and transmedia in the Department of Design Communications, approached the assignment like a professional portfolio project.  Padgett, with faculty member Rod Martinez, contacted the City with the concept of using students to create a social campaign for families and nature enthusiasts.  Their concepts included social media such as Facebook and Twitter, along with traditional media such as radio, television and newspapers.  The group also focused on creating a new webpage for the Creekwalk, as well as a mobile application and QR code scanning system that will convey information about sites along the walk.

It’s emblematic that this initiative grew from The Warehouse – the former Dunk & Bright warehouse at the western edge of Armory Square that has become a focal point for experience-based learning and mission-based activities.  It’s one more example of building natural connections between the daily life of the Syracuse University campus and the City of Syracuse.

For more information about the Creekwalk, including a downloadable map, photos and videos, visit:  http://www.syracuse.ny.us/Creekwalk.aspx