Category Archives: Sustainable Architecture

Construction, Environmental Construction, Environmentally Safe Materials, Green Building, Residential Housing, Sustainable Architecture

The Rose receives 2016 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award from the Urban Land Institute

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Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2016-Nov-04 — /EPR CONSTRUCTION NEWS/ — PLACE is pleased to announce that The Rose and three sister developments at Portland and Franklin Avenues (South Quarter) in Minneapolis were selected by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Housing as the winner of the 2016 Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Award. This annual award honors developments that ensure housing affordability for people with a range of incomes. Representing the completion of South Quarter, The Rose offers 43 market rate apartments and 47 income-restricted affordable apartments in profoundly sustainable buildings that have neither furnaces nor conventional air conditioning equipment.

In 2010, affordable housing developer Aeon, in partnership with Hope Community, selected PLACE by competition to add specialized development consultant capacity as Sustainability Champion for the last phase of South Quarter. Aeon wanted the final buildings to be the best performing buildings of their kind in the country, on an affordable housing budget. A 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to public benefit, PLACE provided disruptive environmental design analysis, assisted in assembling and facilitating a world-class collaborative design and construction team, deepened community engagement, and refined financial modeling in furtherance of creating high-performance, healthy buildings for Aeon’s residents.

Minneapolis has the harshest climate of any large city in America. The biggest challenge for PLACE was to ensure that the team could deliver a building envelope capable of keeping residents cool in a scorching summer with high humidity and a frigid winter with temperatures plunging to minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit. Buildings in the U.S. are built each day to standards that cause them to consume 70% of America’s primary energy, with 52% of that energy going to heating and cooling. The Rose is 75% more energy efficient than local standards require, which also deepens affordability for residents; it represents PLACE’s most cutting edge restorative development work to date.

“This project is on the leading edge of workforce housing development and preservation,” said J. Ronald Terwilliger, chairman of Terwilliger Pappas Multifamily Partners in Atlanta. “It has it all—mixed-income housing, environmental sustainability, long-term affordability, and long-term financing.”

“The efforts of Aeon and Hope Community, with their many public and private sector partners, prove that previously disinvested communities can point the way forward for mixed-income, environmentally sustainable redevelopment in our cities,” said Stockton Williams, executive director of the ULI Terwilliger Center.

PRESS CONTACT
place
Chris Velasco
Executive Director
PLACE
100 Portland Avenue South
Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 309-3889
www.welcometoplace.org

Via EPR Network
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Builders, Building Energy Efficiency, Construction, Environmental Construction, Residential Housing, Sustainable Architecture

The Metropolitan Council approves a $2M grant to fund a landmark, transit-oriented development in the heart of St. Louis Park, Minnesota

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St. Louis Park, MN, December 11, 2015 — /EPR CONSTRUCTION NEWS/ — On December 9, 2015 and after overwhelming enthusiasm and support from a rigorous application and vetting process, the Metropolitan Council approved funding for PLACE’s St. Louis Park Community. The Council approved 2 million dollars in funding from its Livable Communities Account for a Transit-Oriented Development (LCA-TOD) grant after the proposed project demonstrated a breakthrough approach to meeting housing and economic development needs in the Twin Cities. The funds will be used to help secure site acquisition at the former McGarvey Coffee property, pioneer alternative energy sources, and integrate stormwater improvement with infrastructure like green roofs and an urban forest.

A nonprofit called PLACE (Projects Linking Art, Community, and Environment) heads up the community endeavor in concert with the City of St. Louis Park, fellow eco-minded and socially conscious companies like Allianz Life, Stantec, Shaw-Lundquist, Lindquist & Vennum, MSR, LIFT, and Rachel Contracting that have invested in the project, other private partners, and public collaborators like Hennepin County. The community will elevate affordable living, design, and artistic culture in the city and will be located near the expected Green Line extension (Southwest Light Rail) Wooddale Station. The development’s potential positive impact is staggering, with healthy homes for 300 households across the income spectrum supported by a mobility hub, urban agriculture, live and work spaces, a hotel, and a renewable energy generation system that consumes food waste created by its inhabitants and surrounding neighbors.

Chris Velasco, PLACE’s Executive Director, observed, “I think this project will be of national significance for communities that want to effectively leverage their scarce resources.”

Ryan Kelley, City of St. Louis Park Planner, says, “The City of St. Louis Park is extremely proud to be the co-recipient with PLACE of the Met Council’s largest transit oriented development grant for a new sustainable community of regional significance.”

“PLACE is an excellent project, for the city and the region. Turning vacant, unused property into a community space with alternative energy features, that is connected to other uses, like transit, is just the kind of investment the Council wants to make toward a livable communities and a prosperous region” – Erin Heelan, TOD Grants Coordinator, Metropolitan Council Livable Communities.

Executive Director Velasco thanks the Metropolitan Council for its confidence and support on behalf of the entire team and the residents of St. Louis Park.

MEDIA CONTACT

Peter Sieve (612) 326-0409 pete@welcometoplace.org
Elizabeth Bowling (612) 326-0399 elizabeth@welcometoplace.org

www.welcometoplace.org

 

Via EPR Network
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Building, Building Energy Efficiency, Construction, Environmental Construction, Green Building, Sustainable Architecture

Messer Construction Co. To Host Graduation Ceremony For Green Build Boot Camp Participants

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The National Sustainability Coalition is on a mission to take small and diverse companies to a higher level of operational efficiencies in the emerging green economy. In November, the organization launched the Green Construction Education Program. Partners in the initiative are the City of Cincinnati Small Business Enterprise Program, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky African American Chamber, Hispanic Chamber Cincinnati USA, Ohio River Valley Women’s Business Council, Ohio Small Business Development Center at the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati and Messer Construction Co.

At the core of the NSC’s initiative is a unique Green Build Boot Camp blended learning initiative designed to give businesses in construction and construction-related trades a basic understanding of sustainability concepts, the emerging green economy and the green built environment. The program has three levels of training that move a participating business along a Sustainability Continuum™ of continuous improvement. The intent is to increase sustainability-based thinking, perspectives and behaviors that are integrated into everyday operating procedures and the culture of the company, with an outcome of a complete transformation to sustainable operations.

“Through the Green Build Boot Camp workshops, we are ensuring that our inclusion program represents businesses of all kinds and sizes. It’s a way to support the development and utilization of small businesses, and especially businesses owned by minorities, women and veterans,” says Tom Keckeis, Messer’s President and CEO.

Messer sponsored the Green Construction Education Program by hosting the first level of basic training at its headquarters on Fishwick Drive in Cincinnati. The NSC positioned the Green Build Boot Camp© as the first step for small and diverse businesses to become marketable in the green construction economy. Over 80 individuals participated in the Level 1 Knowledge component, which is an engaging, interactive workshop that combines 4 hours of classroom instruction with 2 hours of web-based training. The workshop included a “show and tell” virtual tour of Messer’s green headquarters, which was recently awarded LEED Silver EB Certification for an existing building. Participants learned first-hand how transitioning their existing company to sustainable operations can build value and competitive advantage into the enterprise. Messer intends to extend the program through September.

Via EPR Network
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Builders, Building, Building Energy Efficiency, Construction, Environmental Construction, Green Building, Sustainable Architecture

BAM Wins Contract To Build The Co-operative Group’s New Manchester Home

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The Co-operative Group has today (24 June) announced that BAM Construction has been appointed to build its new home in Manchester.

BAM Wins Contract To Build The Co-operative Group's New Manchester Home

Construction of the £100m building, on Miller Street, which will be one of the most sustainable in Europe, will commence next month.

In recent months BAM has been working with the design team to help cost the final build and has prepared the site for the 15 storey building which will comprise of 325,000 sq ft of open plan office and support space.

Peter Marks Group Chief Executive at the Co-operative Group, said: “Our new building will be one of the most exciting and innovative in the UK and so it was essential that we appointed a company with the experience of working on other similar projects not only in this country but across Europe.

“During the past few months we have been working with BAM on finalising the specifications and costings and preparing the site. They have demonstrated that they have the right approach and so we have every confidence that they will help deliver a truly magnificent new home for the Group.”

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