White Bear Lake Marina Triangle Master Plan
White Bear Lake, Minnesota

Retained by the City of White Bear Lake, CLOSE Landscape Architecture+ led an interdisciplinary team in the development of a master plan for the Marina/Triangle District, the only commercial area on White Bear Lake, one of the premier recreational lakes in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Working with an appointed Commission, the design team studied a series of scenarios for future development, settling on a plan that incorporated both the historic Johnson Boat Works and existing retail uses into a mixed-use "village" on the west shore of the lake.

The plan forwards state-of-the-art concepts for redevelopment, transforming a 1960's shopping mall into a compact, walkable community fronting on a marina and waterfront promenade. Also included are a waterfront park, traffic-calmed streets in place of large surface parking lots, and the addition of for-sale and rental housing to the mix of land uses. Links to future regional transit are incorporated, and environmental concerns played a major role in the study as well, with rain gardens integrated into reclaimed green spaces throughout the site.