Client Q&A with Paul Hayes

Posted 2/3/2020

For five decades Design Workshop has provided landscape architecture, planning, urban design and strategic services to clients in North America and throughout the world. We are committed to creating special places that meet today's needs and that are sustainable environments for all time. We wouldn’t have been able to work on all of these incredible projects without our clients. Today, we would like you to meet one of these amazing clients – Paul Hayes, President of East Village Green, LLC.

Why did you select Design Workshop?
We were in the early stages of planning for a land development project – formerly referred to as the Market District – in Des Moines, Iowa. This hip, new area will be an entirely new development on an eight-acre park next to the river. We had the “big idea” but we needed guidance to develop a more refined plan to present to the city. Design Workshop was recommended to us by a trusted resource in the community. This coupled with the fact that the firm had also done a similar project 20 years ago in Denver made Design Workshop the right choice for this project.

What has been the most unique aspect about working with Design Workshop?
We went out to Denver to meet with the Design Workshop team and to tour a similar project they had completed. They exceeded our expectations on the trip going far beyond a simple tour by introducing us to real estate developers that had been involved in similar projects as well as Denver City staff to address aspects of development around the park. It was incredibly helpful to talk with developers who had done this before and allowed us to be much more educated going into the planning process.

What has this project taught you thus far?
It taught us that we don’t know what we don’t know. Coming into this project we had the City of Des Moines’ vision for the area that had been shaped by a facilitator. Design Workshop guided us through a process to gather input from the local community allowing us to create a plan that is stronger, more vibrant and a better fit for our city.

If you had to describe Design Workshop in one sentence, what would you say?
Design Workshop provides access to a wealth of resources from their internal team to external collaborators, subject matter experts and industry leaders.

What was the lightbulb moment for you in the project?
Design Workshop had the best approach for creating economic value in terms of how the master plan could be implemented, allowing us to build the big idea at the beginning without requiring huge upfront capital investments to support it. They also have been helpful in gathering resources for preliminary cost ideas and connecting us to other great resources that we need to see our project through to fruition.