Craven Street Watershed Restoration and Innovative Stormwater

Supporting our partners at RiverLink and the City of Asheville, CWMTF helped fund the construction of several stormwater and stream restoration BMPs within a brownfield site that had been home to a livestock market and historic landfill prior to redevelopment by New Belgium Brewing. The project implemented a “green streets” approach to stormwater management and included installation of bio-swales, bio-retention areas, duel bay curbside bio-filtration, and a stylized stream restoration segment within the New Belgium campus.

From RiverLink’s Craven Street Stormwater Improvement Fact Sheet:

The Craven Street Improvement Project is a public infrastructure project, in conjunction with the City of Asheville, RiverLink Inc., and New Belgium Brewing Company. The project includes realignment of Craven Street, improved pedestrian transportation, stormwater management and water quality improvement in the unnamed stream bisecting the New Belgium property. RiverLink received $400,000 in grant funding from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to support the construction of numerous stormwater BMPs, stream enhancement, stormwater retention, and low impact development practices, to improve the water quality in the stream and French Broad River.

The Craven Street project aims to capture and treat the first inch of stormwater from the neighborhood through a variety of stormwater quality mechanisms. This includes bioretention areas, bioswales along the road way, rain gardens in parking lots, and constructed wetlands throughout the site. The project will improve the stream corridor, through bank stabilization, native plantings, and contouring of the stream bank.

Additionally New Belgium is capturing rain water for irrigation purposes. These stormwater improvements will capture and treat rain water before entering the stream, reducing erosion, and volume of stormwater runoff.

Read more about the project and explore more maps and images at RiverLink’s Craven Street project website.