REDMOND — The city of Redmond has identified 17 new projects for University of Oregon students to tackle as part of the school’s Sustainable City Year Program, Heather Richards, community development director, said Monday.

Speaking at a Redmond Downtown Urban Renewal Advisory Committee meeting, Richards highlighted several projects with urban renewal potential, including a market analysis of downtown that studies the potential of business clusters and the possibility of a business incubator area, similar to the 1001 Tech Center in Bend.

Redmond and UO’s first project together, which took place during the spring academic quarter, looked at ways to make the city more bike- and pedestrian- friendly. Students came up with safer bike routes to schools, better connections to Dry Canyon and a wayfinding system that could potentially help cyclists get from point to point in the city more efficiently on bike-friendly paths.

“These projects will use a combination of upper-level undergraduate students doing capstone projects and the school’s MBA program,” Richards said Monday. “We’re hoping by using the UO program, some of these projects start to generate interest and momentum.”

The market analysis would examine what business make sense for Redmond’s downtown, where downtown shoppers come from and what services would attract shoppers from nearby communities.

Richards said the city conducted a similar study several years ago when it looked at the feasibility of a downtown recreation center.

As for the business incubator, Richards said, the early success of the concept in Bend and the opportunity for Redmond to use UO student brainpower makes the project ideal.

“We’ll work with Oregon’s MBA program to see if that concept of sharing space and sharing products makes sense in Redmond,” Richards said.

Though not necessarily related to urban renewal projects, Richards also pointed out projects with UO involving Redmond’s south entrance on U.S. Highway 97 and the city’s all-around walkability.

On the Highway 97 partnership, Redmond will work with landscape architecture students on a variety of challenges, including the question of how to make a welcoming entrance on the southern edge of town. The walkability project will tap students in Oregon’s Geographic Information Science classes and look at what is working and what isn’t in Redmond in terms of resident access to services without driving.

While those projects won’t get started until the 2015-16 school year, Richards said, Redmond’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee hoped to soon take some of the bike concepts UO students came up with to the Redmond City Council.

“We’d like to do some of the wayfaring, in which you put signs up for a route to get from one point to another,” Richards said. “Or maybe the connector route from Dry Canyon to Centennial Park. We hope to demonstrate a couple of the ideas and see where they go from there.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829, beastes@bendbulletin.com