With community and environmental sustainability in mind, Detroit-based Gesu Catholic Church and School incorporated multiple green infrastructure features into its 6-acre campus. Wade Trim assisted with this dramatic campus redesign to retain as much stormwater on-site as possible to reduce the volume of drainage into City sewers and the church’s associated Stormwater Management and Drainage fee.

Using City ordinances and Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) drainage charge structures as guides, Wade Trim created a conceptual design and construction documents for impervious surface removal, downspout disconnections, and bioinfiltration gardens. The design directs rainwater to vegetated areas to encourage infiltration and reduces paved areas. Two bioretention rain gardens sized for a 100-year storm, two dry wells, and five 500-gallon rain barrels retain up to nearly 3,000 cubic feet of stormwater. Additionally, 49 downspouts that had drained roof runoff directly into the city sewer system were disconnected to allow that water to flow onto vegetated areas and into green infrastructure features, encouraging infiltration.

Community involvement was a driving force in the successful implementation of this project. Along with church members, local Detroit prep school sports teams assisted in the installation of these features during multiple volunteer workdays. Gesu paid for this project with grants from UAW-Ford National Program Office and applied for Capital Partnership Funding through DWSD. The National Wildlife Federation, Friends of the Rouge, Sierra Club of Michigan, and the Catholic Climate Covenant assisted in planting the two bioretention ponds on the south lawn of the school and installing signage to explain to the community how the stormwater features work. This project’s success has led to plans for additional “greening” projects at Gesu Catholic Church and School in the future.