Residential Developers Building “Green”

Combining "green" with affordability could prove a way out of the housing slump in St. Louis. Three area housing developers — two in the City of St. Louis and one in Jerseyville, IL, have recently announced that they are heading down that path.

Lexington Farms

In Jerseyville, Capstone Development Group began construction in September of Lexington Farms subdivision, which it is billing as "the nation's first net-zero energy, affordable community." The developer projects that the 32 single-family homes under construction in a suburban cornfield will rent for $590 a month and the renters will pay nothing for gas and electricity.

"This development will be rented to rural families that earn less than $41,000 per year. And they won't have a gas bill. They won't have a heating bill. When they get their electric bill, it is more likely to be credit instead of a cost. Green technology will truly make a more affordable and more sustainable life for everyone in the community," said Bill Luchini, president of Capstone Development Group.

The 32 single-family homes will each have three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and an attached two-car garage. Luchini believes that when complete, it will be the first LEED Platinum Certified affordable community in the nation.

The 1,230-square-foot homes will feature central air conditioning, heat, hot water and other appliances that all run on electric energy, powered by roof-mounted solar panels on all homes, as well as wind turbines throughout the subdivision. Even the streetlights will be powered by wind and solar.

The design will incorporate:
• Sustainable landscape practices include efficient irrigation systems
• Water efficient faucets, shower heads, and WaterSense toilets
• Bathroom and kitchen exhaust vented to the outdoors removing sources of pollutants
• Energy-efficient design and Energy Star appliances, exceeding Energy Star for New Homes requirements
• Wall insulation at R-21 and R-49 insulation in the attic
• Well sealed and air-tight construction reducing drafts
• Low VOC paints
• Energy efficient florescent light fixtures
• Argon gas U35-rated low-e windows
• Extensive use of recycled material

"These homes will have an independent third-party evaluation to ensure each home actually performs as designed, was constructed properly, and meets the criteria for LEED certification," said Jason La Fleur, project manager for the Alliance for Environmental Sustainability, who is serving as the LEED for Homes provider for the Lexington Farms development. "The fact that these homes will reach the prestigious LEED Platinum certification level and yet will remain affordable is a testament to the hard work the design team has put into this project, and shows that green building can work with any budget," he said.

Financing for the development includes financing from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, Sterling Bank, and Federal Tax Credit Equity from the National Equity Fund.

Arlington Grove

In St. Louis, developer McCormack Baron Salazar has begun work on one of the first Enterprise Green Communities in the country, and the first in Missouri: the $41 million Arlington Grove redevelopment project near Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and Burd Avenue.

Plans for the project include 112-mixed-finance, mixed-income rental units in garden apartments, townhouses, semi-detached housing, a new mixed-use building and rehabilitation of the historic Arlington Elementary School for a total gross residential square footage of 162,000 and 5,000 square feet of commercial/retail. The school renovation will produce 21 apartments and new construction on the surrounding block will yield the other 91 housing units - a mix of townhouses and garden apartments. The total mix will contain market rate units, Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units, HOME units, and public housing units.

Environmentally friendly features incorporated into the development's design and construction include Energy Star labeled appliances and fixtures, solar panels, water-conserving appliances and fixtures, water management techniques during construction, high-efficiency HVAC systems, recycling of content materials and reduction of heat-island effect through highly reflective roof shingles and pervious paving.

The sustainability goals for Arlington Grove are not as aggressive as they are for Lexington Farms, but "Arlington Grove represents one of the first projects in the country using the Enterprise Green Communities criteria, in particular the solar panels," said Nathan Rauh, Housing Studio Leader for KAI Design & Build, which is serving as serving as the architect, mechanical/electrical/plumbing engineer, general contractor, and Building Information Modeling coordinator on the project. "The photovoltaic panels specified for the project are expected to provide 10 percent of the development's total energy demands," he said. The Enterprise Green Communities criteria were mandated by some of the public funds that will be used to build the project: the Capital Fund Recovery Competition grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Arlington Grove project also is significant for its percentages of minority participation. A St. Louis statute requires 25 percent of contract dollars on city projects go to minority business enterprises (MBEs) and five percent go to women business enterprises (WBEs). Through the efforts of the KAI-led design-build team, the Arlington Grove project was able to achieve to surpass those requirements with 40 percent MBE and 10 percent WBE participation.

KAI used an extended, three month long bid process to recruit minority and women contractors and suppliers to the project. KAI scheduled a series of pre-bid meetings that gave minority-owned, subcontractors immediate access to the large, majority-owned firms, opening the lines of communication. The bid process also allowed minority-owned firms to learn about the project specifications early enough to submit a thorough bid and to foster important, new relationships.

Len Toenjes, president of AGC of St. Louis, complimented KAI's efforts. "The Associated General Contractors of St. Louis is happy to see new and innovative approaches being taken to build a more inclusive construction business community," he said.

West Botanical Heights

Another green urban redevelopment effort - this one for for a roughly 10 block area north of the Missouri Botanical that is bounded by Vandeventer and Lafayette Avenue and Fulsom - is being led by Urban Improvement Construction/Central Design Office.

Plans for the first phase of the project call for the construction of 30 LEED Platinum homes - 17 in renovated buildings and 13 of new construction - with a shared, neighborhood geothermal heating and cooling system on the 4100 block of McCree.

Brent Crittendon, principal at UIC/CDO, said the idea is to bring down the cost of geothermal heating and cooling by sharing resources across the block. The buildings will be "very tight", he said, to further reduce heating and cooling costs.

The design esthetic is to recreate the historical urban neighborhood by preserving existing structures and infilling with new construction of similar widths and heights, but of a contemporary design. The small roof area associated with historical designs, however, is inefficient for solar panels, "although we will offer solar as an upgrade," he said.

Rebuilding in an urban neighborhood, he added, "hits many of the checkmarks or sustainability." Two things that will change, however, are yards and streetscapes. "We'll be doing sustainable streetscapes and yards" that feature bioswales and other water-conserving features, he said.

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