Mark MaGrann considers the U.S. Green Building Council's
Project of the Year award "equivalent to receiving the Academy Award for
the best picture."
When Paseo Verde, a 120-unit mixed-use rental-housing
project on North Ninth Street near the Temple University campus was so honored,
MaGrann got his Oscar. His Mount Laurel energy-consulting and engineering firm
provided Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
Paseo Verde, codeveloped by Asociacion Puertorriquenos en
Marcha and Jonathan Rose Cos. with Wallace Roberts & Todd architects,
includes one- to three-bedroom units - 50 of which rent for market rate while
the 70 others are pegged to income levels - and a ground-floor medical center
and pharmacy, as well as housing several community organizations.
Completed in 2013 at a cost of $48 million, Paseo Verde
is not the first Project of the Year with which MaGrann has been associated. In
2010, his firm handled the LEED certification for Postgreen Homes' East
Kensington "$100,000 Home," which won the award.
The LEED certification process encourages project teams
to seek innovative solutions that are better for the environment and for
communities.
Necessity "is really critical to the green
conversation," MaGrann said. "With limited lumber and water supplies
and myriad global issues, the future of both market-rate and affordable housing
will need to have some level of green."
He said he hoped Paseo Verde's Project of the Year award
would "inspire others in the city to take the lead."
"Philadelphia will never be a first-class city if we
ignore infrastructure," he said.
Built on what had been a Philadelphia Gas Works surface
parking lot in the 1900 block of North Ninth Street, Paseo Verde was designed
to the highest level of LEED certification - platinum.
The four levels of certification, carried out by
third-party firms such as MaGrann, correspond to the number of credits accrued
in five green-design categories: sustainable sites; water efficiency; energy
and atmosphere; materials and resources; and indoor environmental quality,
according to the Green Building Council.
"You can say you are green until you are blue in the
face, but without independent, third-party documentation to a recognized
standard, you aren't," MaGrann said.
Getting Paseo Verde from conception to completion
involved the close collaboration of everyone involved, he said.
"That's the soft answer," he noted, recalling
his first visit to the site in 2009-10, with 24 different financing agencies
involved.
"It was a jigsaw puzzle, just in terms of bringing
all of the parties together," MaGrann said.
Jonathan E. Jensen, MaGrann's sustainability director,
noted, "Paseo Verde was not a fast mover until it got moving, and then it
moved at lightning speed."
The details, Jensen said, made the project stand out,
with the "design and construction team focusing on the envelope, including
an alternative insulation package" that increases comfort and reduces
noise.
Paseo Verde, an example of transit-oriented development,
backs up to SEPTA's Regional Rail - one of the system's busier stretches - yet
"when you are standing in the hallway and the train goes by, you never
know it," Jensen said.
The building's ventilation system delivers "the
right amount of outside air," and the lighting is both efficient and
modern "in technology and design," he said.
Two parallel systems handle storm water.
The upper blue roofs detain water there and slowly
release it to an underground infiltration feature, allowing the water to
percolate back into the earth, since it is supplied at a slower rate.
The green roofs "are a combination of extensive
[thin] and intensive [deep and heavier] areas that together capture some
rainwater and slow the progress of all of it on its way to the storm sewer
system," he said.
Both market-rate and affordable units were built to the
same standards, MaGrann said, and, while not in the same building, they share
common areas.
MaGrann believes "consumers do ascribe value to a
certified green home."
Many of the region's real estate agents say their clients
don't typically appreciate features that might lower energy bills until after
they've made a decision to move in. Still, he said, "a statistically
rigorous" study in California showed a trend toward 7 percent to 9 percent
value added to green buildings.
"The promise of green homes is that they are
healthier, durable, and more efficient," he said, "but building them
is also the right thing to do."
Source: Philly.com
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