Page 163 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

142 CHAPTER 5

We are often quick to identify the challenges facing a new endeavor— and those are
important considerations, ones we will be pursuing throughout the remainder of this
chapter. Before doing so, however, it’s worthwhile to pose an inverse question: What
challenges do we face by continuing to develop in the same ways our culture has for
decades, even centuries?
In the United States today, we lose more than one million acres a year to roads, park-
1
ing lots, and urban sprawl development. Over the last two hundred years, we’ve lost
50 percent of our wetlands, 90 percent of our old growth Northwest forests, 99 percent
3
2
of our Midwest prairies and 98 percent of our longleaf pine ecosystem. Between 1970
and 1990, there were approximately 25,000 shopping centers built in the U.S., or an
4
average of one every seven hours. With approximately five million commercial build-
ings in this country today, we still add another 170,000 annually. With over 100 million
housing units in stock today, we add another two million each year. We also demolish
44,000 commercial buildings and a quarter-million housing units each year, most less
5
than thirty years old and destined for the landfill. And virtually all of this so-called
growth occurs using energy strategies (if you can call them that) that are sadly inade-
quate. And so the question becomes, do we need to make a business case for green
development or for the traditional development practices that seem—when you con-
sider the broader context—so unsound? That was the underlying premise of our intent
to develop Abercorn Common differently, despite the many challenges we faced.

An Overview of the Project

The phase one portion of Abercorn Common, now built out and leased up, consists of
approximately 209,000 square feet (187,00 square feet of leaseable area) spread across
three distinct parcels: a main in-line shopping center and two out-parcels—a stand-
alone McDonald’s and a set of small shops (called Shops 600) fronting the main
thoroughfare. Each parcel, developed one after the other, called for distinctive develop-
ment strategies and constituted separate LEED projects. Phase two, consisting of an
adjacent parcel of land contiguous to the main in-line development, has remained
undeveloped pending future plans. We will first take a look at the overall site before
delving into the specific LEED strategies for the three major components of the project.
If you were to bicycle or drive or ride the bus past Abercorn Common today, you
might notice just how normal the development looks, a far cry from the edgy LEED
buildings you see in magazine photographs. This design was deliberate, the result of
our intention to reassure the market that a new-to-the-world green retail development
could be green without looking out of place. The second thing you might notice about
Abercorn Common is how literally green it looks, thanks to the large number of trees
and shrubs on site. You also might notice it’s not a typical flat-facade retail strip with
head-in parking spaces along the fronts of the stores. In designing Abercorn Common,
we asked our architects to emulate the look of historic downtown Savannah, so each
store would have a distinctive appearance and would look as if each building had been
built by a different owner at a different point in time. Building heights and exterior