Posted Apr 22, 2008, 4:22 AM
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Country Club Park, Greater Coronado, Midtown, Phoenix, Az
Posts: 4,610
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From: http://www.azcentral.com/community/t...nrail0421.html
Quote:
Tempe transit center strives for top eco-friendly certification
13 comments by Kerry Fehr-Snyder - Apr. 21, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Green is one thing; gold is another. And platinum is in a class by itself.
As Earth Day approaches and the gravity of global warming sinks in, Tempe officials are working furiously to complete the state's first public/private building to apply for the gold standard in "green" building - platinum LEED certification.
The designation is short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is given to new or renovated buildings that are environmentally friendly.
The $24.5 million project is six years in the making and has fought an uphill battle. For years, officials balked that building environmentally sound facilities like the new Tempe Transportation Center at the base of A-Mountain on Fifth Street in downtown would be too expensive.
But the project's primary advocate, Bonnie Richardson, argues that upfront costs save taxpayers money and slow the environment's accelerating degradation.
"There was some skepticism about green buildings when we started," said Richardson, a principal planner for Tempe and a member of the local governing board of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Building backers hold the three-floor, 40,000-square-foot facility up as a model and demonstration project for other municipalities and private businesses.
They have documented the project's progress and pitfalls from its groundbreaking in 2001 to its inclusion on Valley's first green-building real-estate bus tour planned for Tuesday, Earth Day.
The Tempe Transportation Center will be featured on the bus tour in an effort to highlight the green-building conference next year.
Greenbuild 2009, the annual conference of the U.S. Green Building Council, is planned for next November at the Phoenix Convention Center. Up to 40,000 are expected to attend.
The Tempe Transportation Center will be tied to the Tempe-ASU light-rail station, on the northwestern corner of College Avenue and Veterans Way.
Center developers will apply for it to be certified as the first public/private platinum green building in the state. The only other platinum green buildings are at the state's universities. Two are at Arizona State University, one is at the University of Arizona and one is at Northern Arizona University.
The LEED rating system is based on four certification levels - certified, silver, gold and platinum, the highest classification. New buildings are judged in five design categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The transportation center is designed to be ultra-energy efficient so that planners could apply for platinum LEED certification.
The building features a Sonoran Desert rooftop garden that will harvest rainwater and "gray water," recycled water that is safe for plants but not people. The garden is also designed to absorb sun that otherwise would heat up the building.
The second and third floors are set aside for offices, with the second floor to be occupied by city transportation workers and the third floor by leased tenants.
Both floors feature large balconies with retractable windows to allow breezes to cool the building when temperatures and weather conditions are nice.
Indoor cooling vents are built into the office floors to improve air quality. The eastern orientation of the building provides natural lighting, and panel-shade systems are designed to block sunlight. Recycled material was used throughout the building, and a separate gray-water system inside will recycle water from showers, sinks and drinking fountains to fill toilets. The toilets will have two flushing switches to accommodate the different amounts of water needed for disposal.
The center will also feature a unique two-tier, Murphy-bed-style indoor bike-storage area for light-rail passengers who bike to and from the station. Showers, restrooms and bike-repair services are also being built.
The first floor is where light-rail riders buy tickets and wait for light-rail trains, buses that will serve local and regional passengers, and free shuttles to connect ASU and neighborhoods to downtown Tempe.
An elevated community center will provide shade to riders and others who want to eat outside.
A grand opening for the facility is planned for September or October, with occupants moving in as early as June 6.
The center has been designed, Richardson said, to last much longer than modern-built facilities.
"We want to get beyond the idea that we build buildings for 20, 30 or 40 years," she said. "This has been designed to last 80 or 100 years and can be modified to meet changes in the future."
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I'm excited to see this thing when it gets finished, it sounds great.
Now if Phoenix would get some plans to do something similar with their central transit station I'd be a happy camper. I'd love to see the Phoenix station redeveloped to have an underground garage, and indoor as well as outdoor waiting area for buses, DASH and LRT as well as a future connector to Union Station/commuter rail (though I imagine this would be done via DASH). Perhaps it could be developed in conjunction w/ Central Park East phase 2. With the current ASU dorms almost certain to meet the wrecking ball in the near future and a shrimpy ASU parking garage adjacent, maybe this series of lots:
(red=area Im talking about, blue=OCPE)
could be developed into something like the Tower City Center in Cleveland ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_City_Center). But I'll cut off my Phoenix dreamin' there since this is the Tempe thread.
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You obviously interpreted the marketing campaign correctly. 
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