It sounds like an oxymoron: a "green" parking lot.
But behind the Visitors Center in downtown Annapolis is a new parking lot designed to be environmentally friendly.
With six rain gardens, two solar-powered payment machines, recycled construction materials and a permeable surface, the lot is meant to be an improvement over its predecessor — better able to manage storm-water runoff and blend with the Historic District.
An improved parking area was part of the city's plan for the Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Conference & Visitors Bureau's center that was overhauled a few years ago, as a way to provide short-term parking for visitors, businesses and stores on the section of West Street close to the tourist-laden Main Street hill.
The completion of the parking lot comes after Annapolis was named a finalist in an international competition, the LivCom Awards. It focuses on environmental practices and creating livable communities.
It is the second year Annapolis is a finalist in the small city category. This year, the city also is finalist in a second category, individual projects, for Acton's Landing, a residential project on the former site of the Anne Arundel Medical Center. It added about 100 homes — a mix of a condominium high-rise, townhouses and single-family homes — a few minutes' walk from downtown shops, offices and restaurants, and was the largest project built in the Historic District in decades when begun in 2004.
Being a finalist in two categories "recognizes our efforts to create a livable city for our residents," said city planning chief Jon Arason.
The criteria include environmental practices, community participation, healthy lifestyle, culture and heritage. City officials said the parking lot is the latest example of practices residents have come to expect in the city so steeped in history that excavations for the lot led to an archaeological team unearthing Colonial artifacts.
The new parking lot replaces an asphalt surface that had officials tearing out their hair. The old lot collected water — worse, it collected ice in winter. Visitors couldn't figure out how to get into it. Entry, for those in the know, was through the adjacent city-owned garage.
Most of the $795,000 for the new lot came from a Maryland Department of the Environment grant, and a couple of thousand dollars came from the Four Rivers heritage organization. The city paid about $64,000, officials said.
The idea was to create a lot that could filter storm water from up to 5.2 inches of rain a day, keeping as much water as possible onsite for trees, flowers and other plants. Excess goes into storm drains. Its designers watched it in recent rains of 2 inches.
"It eclipsed my expectation," said the engineer, Brian Luse of Bay Engineering Inc in Annapolis.
The 10-inch deluge last month sent more water into the storm drains. None pooled in the lot.
But that engineering is invisible to most; what people see is a brick lot with stone trim, surrounded by plants.
Clay bricks fit together with gaps between them to create a permeable surface for rain to seep into a mostly gravel base, said Luse. That water gets piped into the gardens. Excess water drains off the surface and also flows into the planted areas. Storm drains prevent flooding.
"We used native plants in the rain gardens," said designer Shelley Rentsch, a principal with the O'Doherty Group Landscape Architecture in the city.
Reclaimed Baltimore curbstones were used for the lot's edging and wheel-stops.
The city refurbished the old lot's pole lights, adding energy-saving photo-cells that turn the lamps on in darkness and off in sunlight, said Lily Openshaw, a city engineer who supervised the project.
A pedestrian path features recycled blue glass chips in concrete.
"The designer wanted to distinguish the walkway. She wanted to have blue as the theme for water. What she was doing is trying to create a public space in addition to the parking lot," Openshaw said.
The lot has spaces for 27 cars, four scooters and a motorcycle, plus a bicycle rack. Closing the lot off from the garage enabled the addition of three new garage spots.
All of that is good for the city, said officials, who are looking ahead to the November conference when the international LivCom Awards will be announced.
Frank Biba, director of Annapolis' environmental programs, said the city is walkable and bike-able, has events and places that draw both residents and out-of-towners, and, with neighborhoods, runs two programs a year in community planting and outdoor cleanup.
"Annapolis is a water-centric community, home to several yacht clubs and the National Sailing Hall of Fame, numerous marinas, thousands of boats, and a thriving maritime sector," Biba wrote in an e-mail.
City investment in the downtown streetscape and along West Street helped bring millions of dollars in redevelopment, said Arason, the city planning chief.
Acton's Landing showed that "fairly dense" redevelopment could add to the city's downtown population but be done in a way that recognized the environment and history, he said.
"That was like 90 percent impervious surface coverage. Now it's got mixed residential," said Arason.
Rain gardens and open space help manage storm water; old buildings were redone and incorporated into the design; and a parking lot was turned into a park with water access, he said.
"The biggest compliment is that people drive by there and say, 'I didn't know this is a new development,' " he said.
Despite environmental initiatives, the city lags in one area — Annapolitans recycle less than Anne Arundel County residents. City officials said they hope to create a marketing campaign, as the county has done, to help increase recycling.