GREGORY SUNDSTROM: "Let me quickly relay a short story that explains the birth of this genius.

A group came to see me and said that they wanted to create a boulevard on Plainfield.

And I drive Plainfield every day because I live on the north side

and I said, I think I actually said, 'Are you crazy?'"

[Music]

RUTH KELLY: "It's really a quality of life project.

The seven water quality, or bioretention islands,

are going to bring, we believe,

social, economic and environmental benefits to the city of Grand Rapids

and particularly to the Creston business area in the north quarter."

DEBORAH EID: "Plainfield Avenue would be resurfaced this summer

and we would love to see some improvements to the streetscrape of Plainfield, not just new concrete.

With 1 inch of stormwater falling into these basins, we are going to treat 90,000 gallons

of the water that goes pouring out from the storm water to the city's biggest water asset."

MARK DECLERCQ: "A lot of storm sewer that we capture in our system goes directly out to the Grand River,

so this kind of handles that first flush, and filtrates it."

LAURIE WILLIAMS: "All of the solid waste would be filtered out.

A lot of the road salts and whatnot will be filtered out before it goes out to our river and our Great Lakes."

RUTH KELLY: "Because it's a quarter of a mile away from the river,

we could capture that storm water and clean it and make sure that when it enters the river,

this is about as clean as nature can make it."

DECK ANDREJCZAK: "It's going to be great for Grand Rapids, great for the Grand River and Lake Michigan.

If this takes off, and other communities in general adopt this,

it could have a huge impact on what type of water gets into our waterways."

LAURIE WILLIAMS: "So the water still runs to the outsides of the road.

There's catch basins at the curb

and those catch basins will collect the rain water.

The rain water will be gravity-fed to the center of the road underneath the islands

by underground pipes. As that fills up with water,

it'll start to flood the island and water all the plants inside the island."

DEBORAH EID: "And there was only one problem: no gold in the pot to pay for those boulevards."

RUTH KELLY: "But the city had no money for such a project."

GREGORY SUNDSTROM: "We don't have any money. You need to raise the money."

MICHAEL SMITH: "And this Creston Neighborhod Association stepped forward and said,

'This is really important to us. We're going to raise the money,' and they did it in four weeks."

DECK ANDREJCZAK: "We all spoke with our wallets and our time."

GREGORY SUNDSTROM: "And we put a little bit of seed cash to get it started."

RUTH KELLY: "I think we'll see more families outside,

walking up and down the streets enjoying the beauty. And all that kind of thing brings

in investment to the neighborhood."

GREGORY SUNDSTROM: "They have raised the money and they made this work.

And so I tip my hat to the neighbors and businesses of Creston

because I thought we gave you an impossible challenge, and you succeeded."

RUTH KELLY: "It's about placemaking and making our place so attractive that people

not only live there because they have to that because they want to."

MICHAEL SMITH: "Grand Rapids has been famous for cutting-edge projects.

We've had several grants here like this and they're doing it again now,

and they'll do it again next year with another project.

This is a city that really thinks outside the box. Yes."

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