residential development - The Environment Report

Transcript

To the environmentalist, “green” refers to something environmentally friendly. When
manufacturers refer to green, they usually mean money. But with an increase in the demand for
environmentally sound buildings, manufacturers have the opportunity to combine the two
definitions. For those who see the possibility, retooling to meet the demand for green
construction could mean a large payoff in a burgeoning industry. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Shula Neuman filed this report:

There’s an 86-year old abandoned building in a Cleveland neighborhood that was left for dead a
few decades ago. It’s a shame because inside the building are 26-foot high ceilings with ornate
molding, original Tennessee marble walls and wood trim. But recently, the building, which was
once the Cleveland Trust Bank, was identified by a coalition of local environmental groups as the
ideal spot for their offices. The Cleveland Green Building Coalition spearheaded the task of
converting the old bank building into the new Environmental Center. Executive director Sadhu
Johnston explains, the project is not your average renovation.

“What we’re really trying to do is to demonstrate to people that you can do green while
preserving and that’s often they are seen to butt heads and this project is showing that the two
movements have a lot in common.”

While touring the mostly finished building, Johnston points out seemingly endless
environmentally friendly features. First, there’s a radiant floor heating and cooling system. Then
there are the geothermal wells under the parking lot. They use insulation made from recycled
paper and cardboard. And the roof is divided into three sections: one part has traditional black
tar, another has a white reflective coating and the third segment is a living roof, which looks like
a garden.

Johnston says the layout is meant to demonstrate a more than 100-degree temperature variation
between the three surfaces. All of the different materials and methods used to construct the
Environmental Center, could signal a forward thinking manufacturer to see financial reward from
the burgeoning interest in green buildings. After all, green buildings tend to save money.

The Environmental Center is 67-percent more energy efficient than required by code. In fiscal
terms, that adds up to a half-million dollar savings over 20 years. This might make you wonder
why more people aren’t building green. Actually, according to U.S. Green Building Council
president and CEO Christine Ervin, interest in green construction has been increasing over the
past decade. Since the group established green certification standards three years ago, nearly 700
projects have registered to meet certification. And, Ervin adds, the increase in interest is not
exclusive to tree-huggers

“The diversity of the kinds of projects also is telling us that this is a serious trend that is moving
into the mainstream market. We have projects that are registered firehouses, small schools, FAA
stations. All the way up to manufacturing plants and convention centers.”

Several cities and government agencies are already mandating green construction on new
buildings, including the city of Portland, the General Services Administration and the U.S. Army.

David Goldstein is with the Natural Resources Defense Council and environmental group in San
Francisco. He says there’s a movement afoot to establish national incentives to build green. In
other words, the time is ripe for the construction industry to get with the green program.

“From the point of view of the manufacturers of the equipment and supplies, and of the expert
building designers who put all these things together, once these policies for green buildings are
there, that’s a new market opportunity for them. So it is in their interest to promote these kinds of
policies.”

Goldstein adds green regulations also have a coincidental social benefit. With 35-percent of
pollution coming from the electricity and gas buildings use, requiring green buildings is as much
a public health issue as it is an economic one.

Some manufacturers in the great lakes region have caught on to the possibilities. The Cleveland
Based Garland Company manufactures and installs roofing systems all over the country and is
responsible for the Environmental Center’s roof—its first in-town green job. Garland
incorporates recycled materials into about 80 percent of its products. Nathan Schaus, project
manager at Garland, says about 15 percent of their business comes from their green product line.
Schaus says the market for green materials will continue to grow, especially with manufacturers
pushing its benefits.

“It’s a two-fold education. You need to educate the buyer, the end user that what they’re buying
is a building solution for the long term. So the initial investment, you have to explain that cost
over its life cycle. With the incentives, it’s changing the mindsets of the people that regulate
government and electricity today.”

Government regulators may work even faster on establishing incentives when they see the
increase in demand for residential green building on top of the commercial market. According to
the National Association of Homebuilders, about 13,000 green homes were built last year – a
huge increase over any single year before that. If demand continues to increase at such a rapid
pace, those business that go green now may be making plenty of green in the future.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shula Neuman.

This old industrial building once housed a company that manufactured refrigerator coils. Now, planners are hoping to revitalize it by making a place where artists can live and work. (Photo courtesy of the Enterprise Group of Jackson)

For many cities in the Rust Belt region, the glory days of manufacturing have long passed. These communities are now left trying to figure out how to revitalize their downtowns. One city is hoping a development for artists will create new life and draw people back downtown. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:

Transcript

For many cities in the Rust Belt region, the glory days of manufacturing have long passed. These
communities are now left trying to figure out how to revitalize their downtowns. One city is hoping
a development for artists will create new life and draw people back
downtown. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports.

The city of Jackson is in South Central Michigan, about an hour west of
Detroit. Four blocks from its downtown, next to the old armory and the
remains of an old prison wall, there’s a smokestack and a rundown complex of
industrial buildings.

(key & sound of door opening)

“The last company that was doing full blown manufacturing in this complex of buildings was Acme
Industries that focused on refrigeration coils. We’re gonna walk straight down here.”

(footsteps on stairs fade under)

Kay Howard is a ceramic artist. She and her husband Phil Shiban are getting a tour of the
buildings. Since the early 1900’s when this complex was built, it’s been home to many businesses,
but since the 1970’s, its been basically abandoned.

“At the top of the stairs step to the right. Don’t step on the white board. It covers a hole in the
floor.”

(steps & sounds of glass & floor tiles crunching

Green and yellow paint peels and curls off the walls. The floor is littered with broken glass from
the building’s windows. And there are piles of bird droppings, broken lightbulbs, and rotting boards.
But Kay Howard and her husband are thinking about living here.

“It has so much that can be held onto. I hate seeing buildings knocked down or left in disrepair
when they could be reused and revitalized, and this just screams to have something done with it.”

These buildings are slated to become the Armory Arts Project. The plan is
to turn this 147-thousand square foot complex into an arts facility. It
would become the home to cultural organizations, arts-friendly commercial
businesses, studio space, and residential units that designed to meet the
specific living and working needs of artists, musicians, dancers, jewelers
and the like. Neeta Delaney is the project’s director.

“The driving force behind this is community revitalization. The impetus for this whole development
was really the existence of several tax-free renaissance zones.”

A renaissance zone is what Michigan calls its tax-free areas that were
created to spur development. Delaney says the project costs would
have been around 14-million dollars. They’re whittling down the out of
pocket costs by packaging together tax credits they get for cleaning
up a old industrial site, for renovating historic buildings, and for
creating low income housing. However when they approached developers with
the idea, they were told there was no way to make a go of it. But a
non-profit group from Minneapolis called ArtsSpace Projects Incorporated had a
different opinion. Chris Velasco is the director of Artspace.

“It’s not going to nor is Artspace designing it to generate
Money, but it will cover its costs.”

Artspace has successfully turned dozens of dilapidated buildings in a
number of different cities into affordable places where artists can live
and work. He says while Jackson doesn’t have a reputation as a bastion for
the arts, their market research showed there was more than enough demand
for such a facility in the city.

“If we were to create a multi-purpose arts facility use space in there we would have arts and
organizations 3-deep for every space that we create.”

He says that’s because artists have a hard time finding affordable spaces
where they can raise their kids that can also accommodate the tools of
their trade such as kilns, 10 foot tall canvases, and metal working
equipment. And he says the Armory Arts Project could fill that need.

“Isn’t this gorgeous? Oh my. Oh, this is just awesome.”

Project director Neeta Delaney leads the group to the top floor of one of
the old buildings where sunlight is streaming in through the broken
windows.

“Isn’t it great? Oh my. It is so beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And you think about residential units
up here. Live-work space, you know. This has got to be ideal.”

“This is the space that sold us on the building.”

That’s Steve Czarnecki, the CEO for the Enterprise Group of Jackson. It’s the umbrella
organization for economic development in the area that oversees the counties renaissance zones.

“Because when we first came up here, what else could you imagine this to be except a
place for artists.”

And he says once they figure out how to lure artists to Jackson it will be
easier to lure desirable high-tech business and their employees to the community.

“I think we have to increase our Bohemian Index a little bit here to attract those kind of people.”

See, artists have a track record for moving into old warehouse and industrial areas where
rents are low, fixing it up, and making a community hip and attractive.
The rub is they often then get priced out of the market. But rent at the
Armory Arts Project, like other ArtsSpace projects, will remain low.

And for artists like Kay Howard and Phil Chiban, affordable housing is one
attraction of the project. They support themselves on his pension
payments and her pottery sales. But there’s another reason they’re
interested. The couple is drawn to the idea of living with other working
artists.

“You get kind of solitary as an artist and you really need that contact and comradery and so forth,
so the idea of living in a community-type setting with other artists is very exciting.”

And she’s also excited about the prospect of being part of a project that recycles an abandoned
building and one that could bring excitement to a
downtown in need of new life.

“This has character you can’t design or duplicate. And look at the metal doors. Isn’t this amazing?”

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

Tag: residential development

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