Student project becomes model sustainable community development in Oberlin
Posted May 26, 2010 in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
Ten years ago, writes Andrew Michler in Inhabitat, three college students – Naomi Sabel, Josh Rosen and Ben Ezinga – devised a plan to reclaim a stagnant brownfield in Oberlin, Ohio for mixed-use revitalization. Today the project, which is participating in the LEED for Neighborhood Development pilot program, is nearing readiness for occupancy.
The three partners formed Sustainable Community Associates and raised some $15 million for their East College Street project, which comprises three buildings, 33 condos, 20,000 feet of commercial space, a green courtyard, and a bunch of advanced resource-conserving features on a walkable, transit-accessible site in a part of downtown Oberlin that is becoming a budding arts district. Michler describes the vision:
“The entire range of building a community was considered — high density yet uncluttered design, open public spaces, good retail, and real public involvement. There are a lot of little things that add up, like preserving a mature maple tree in the square, holding a college green design competition for the bus stop, and catching and reusing rainwater for the green spaces. A mature tree that had to be removed was milled into counters for an incoming coffee shop. Additionally, each space features a built-in energy and water monitoring system.”
Additional features include, among others, the following:
- Excellent walkability (The partnership’s website: “The first and biggest decision in green building is a location that promotes pedestrian friendly, densely inhabited, mixed-use development that is close to the goods and services we need every day”)
- Workforce housing (Ten of the 33 condos are being held “as rentals affordable for moderate-income residents. Rent and utilities will be no more than approximately 30% of the applicants’ income”)
- Ground-floor retail and office space (tenants include the Slow Train Café, GreenStar Home Center, and Credo Chamber Music)
- Car-sharing
- An on-site garden
- Preservation of a mature silver maple tree
Idealistic? Absolutely, and good for the three partners. The project site’s Walk Score is 86, a number that will only get better when its commercial tenants are fully operating. I haven’t visited the project but, honestly, from reading about it I don’t know that there is anything I would change. Go here for more about its green features.
Here are two videos (approximately 5 minutes and two minutes, respectively). The first explains the concept while touring the site pre-construction, and the second surveys the considerable progress as of earlier this month.
Move your cursor over the images for credit information.
Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.
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Comments
Tim Kovach — May 26 2010 10:52 AM
Thank you for posting this article highlighting some of the great work on sustainability that is being done in Northeast Ohio. I work on energy and sustainability issues for COSE, which is a small business organization based in Cleveland, and we love seeing our area get press for the positive steps that businesses, non-profits, civic organizations, etc. are doing locally. At COSE, we are committed to providing programs that promote energy efficiency and sustainability for our business members, and we have recently begun trying to promote sustainability and efficiency for businesses that rent their spaces (a majority of our members do). So it is wonderful that there are entrepreneurs like this just down in Oberlin who are making it feasible for small businesses and community residents to live in wonderful green spaces like this without breaking the bank. Hopefully we will see more from these three entrepreneurs, as well as more building and renovation efforts of multi-tenant spaces in the area in this same mold.
Also, I like the changes to the look of the blog. Looks great. Keep up the good work.
Max B. — May 28 2010 12:01 AM
This is a great project, I'm very impressed in both the final product as well as the tenancity of the developers to stick it out for 10 years!
I saw the project website a few years ago and wondered what had happened to it. . .
However, I think green community development also needs to be financially sustainable and would be interested to hear from the developers both how, as a for-profit venture they found the middle ground in serving the community as well as if the project is financially sustainable.