Watering-can downspouts
HBB Landscape Architecture with the Port of Anacortes · Railroad Avenue, Anacortes, Washington, USA · by 2010
Photo from the Street Art Utopia archive (SAU media #63940; WAU media #10936). Project: Port of Anacortes & HBB Landscape Architecture.
Oversized, brightly painted watering cans hang from a port-owned warehouse on Railroad Avenue in Anacortes and work as its downspouts. Roof water pours from their spouts into small rain gardens, which filter it before it reaches Puget Sound. The Port says it partnered with the Skagit Marine Resources Committee on these low-impact features; its landscape architects, HBB, say the retrofit was grant-funded by that committee. Source Source Source Checked
Pointed out by the Port, March 2026: featured on the Port of Anacortes stormwater pollution prevention page (verified last modified 30 March 2026). Source Checked
More photos
4 things to know
- Downspouts that water a gardenWater from the warehouse roof runs through the oversized cans, which spread it evenly over the rain-garden plantings, the Port says. Source Checked
- One of five small retrofitsHBB Landscape Architecture lists the watering cans as the third of five small interventions along O Avenue and Railroad Avenue, feeding four small rain gardens. Source Reported
- Around the Rope BuildingSound Water Stewards describes the whimsical watering-can downspouts around the perimeter of the Rope Building as part of the Railroad Avenue Mitigation Project. Source Checked
- New in 2010An Anacortes Today photo from August 2010 notes the colourful rainspouts on the rope-factory building at Commercial and Railroad avenues. Source Reported
Where it is
Outside Cortland’s warehouse (the Rope Building) on Railroad Avenue at Commercial Avenue, Port of Anacortes, Washington, United States. Source Source Checked
Sightings
- 201023 Aug
Colourful rainspouts photographed at Commercial and Railroad · Anacortes Today
- 201211 Aug
Downspout on the port building · Joe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons
- 201211 Aug
A second downspout on the port building · Joe Mabel, Wikimedia Commons
- 202218 Jan
Described as part of the Railroad Avenue Mitigation Project · Sound Water Stewards
- 202630 Mar
Still pointed out on the Port’s stormwater page · Port of Anacortes
Green stamps mark dated photographs; amber stamps mark records or reports. Publication dates are not camera dates.
In the sources
Low Impact Development
“Part of the Railroad Avenue Mitigation Project in Anacortes includes whimsical downspout “watering cans” around the perimeter of the Rope Building”
The watering cans are part of a stormwater mitigation project.
Colorful corner
“the corner now features colorful rainspouts installed on the building occupied by a rope factory”
The spouts were new on the rope-factory building in 2010.
The facts
Related
All sources & image credits
- Port of Anacortes: Stormwater Pollution Prevention (verified modified 30 March 2026)
- HBB Landscape Architecture: O & Railroad Avenue Narrative (18 April 2025)
- Sound Water Stewards: Low Impact Development (18 January 2022)
- Anacortes Today: Colorful corner (23 August 2010)
- Wikimedia Commons: Anacortes – downspout on port building 01.jpg (Joe Mabel, 11 August 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0; WAU media #10967)
- Wikimedia Commons: Anacortes – downspout on port building 02.jpg (Joe Mabel, 11 August 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0; WAU media #10971)
- Hero image: Street Art Utopia archive (SAU media #63940; WAU media #10936).
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