REDMOND — The creative juices are ready to flow in Redmond.

The city and the University of Oregon are close to finalizing their joint project list for this academic year’s Sustainable City Year Program, an annual collaboration in which UO works with an Oregon community to advance or create sustainability and livability projects.

Redmond officials say they expect to partner with the university on at least 25 different projects this school year, everything from analyzing the feasibility of a Redmond sports complex to identifying ways to better communicate with marginalized communities in the area. Now in its sixth year, the Sustainable City Year Program provides undergraduate and graduate students with real-world training and gives communities selected to participate in the program a shot in the arm in terms of ideas, knowledge and man hours.

“Just the energy of having them here is amazing,” said Ginny McPherson, an assistant project program coordinator with the city. “It’s easy to have success doing something one way and not try anything different. These kids and their ideas — they could shift us in an entirely new direction.”

According to the university, the program typically draws on more than 400 students from 10 to 12 different disciplines, with approximately 40,000 work hours going toward a partner community’s projects.

The city got a sneak peek at the sustainability program this spring when university students presented more than a dozen different bike and pedestrian plans to the Redmond Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Several of those plans, including a color-coded map of the city’s bike routes and a bike-friendly corridor from Dry Canyon to downtown, could be brought to the City Council for approval before the end of the year.

“The mayor (George Endicott) and several councilors are already talking about some of the bike plans,” said Heather Richards, the city’s community development director.

Points of interest set to kick off this fall include a study looking at how to revitalize Redmond’s older neighborhoods, a project that focuses on improving the city’s southern entrance on U.S. Highway 97 and a feasibility study of a family recreation center.

Different projects will be launched throughout the school year, Richards said, as undergraduate students operate on a quarter system and graduate students work off a semester model. Other projects scheduled to start later in the school year include a plan to help strengthen local businesses, a look at the possibility of a large sports complex near the county fairgrounds, a possible rebranding of the city’s utilities, a study on how to attract businesses to Redmond’s medical district and a project tasked with improving community outreach through new and emerging technologies.

“For our generation, we’re using social media (to reach out to the community),” Richards said. “I’m sure these kids will come up with something we’ve never even heard of.”

So far, the Redmond-UO Sustainable City Year Program has students from Oregon’s law school; planning, public policy and management program; journalism school; landscape architecture program; Master of Business Administration graduate program; and historic preservation tract, to name a few. The city has set aside $375,000 for the entire program.

“The next nine months, these students are going to put a lot of work and thought into Redmond,” Richards said. “It’s exciting.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829,

beastes@bendbulletin.com