urbanSTL

I accidently deleted my own post.... and i'm not even drunk (yet)...



Here it is again... A quite possitive article. Are the roberts the next Donald Trump?



Luxury tower rises above weak housing market

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

12/26/2008

DECEMBER 22, 2008 -- Despite the weak economy, Mike and Steve Roberts have broken ground on a $40 million condominium building named Roberts Tower on 8th Street downtown. A huge banner of the building with the second floor under construction below, faces the Old Post Office building, at left.

Describing it as a stealth project would be a stretch, considering it's costing about $70 million and is under construction six days a week in the middle of downtown St. Louis.

read this



So is it a $40 million condo building or does it cost $70 million?

They got funding before the restrictions hit, eh.

Besides having the funding in place, they have the ability to put more owner equity in than most. Typically, you want to keep the equity investment as low as possible, but the Roberts Brothers seem like the type that want the tower built bad enough that they will put their own money up. Or maybe they found a bunch of people that have a lot of money and want one of the condos.

^ Urban leaders can push for this and that but in the end it just comes down to supply and demand. And macroeconomics.

What I'm talking about is what I'm looking at. Tell me specifically what it is that gets you excited about the city, and childhood stories of growing up in this city are not very transferrable to those who didn't experience them. Someone in this thread had said there are a many cultural institutions in this city that are worth hailing, yet mentioned none, so I mentioned one in a follow up. There are surely others, so pretend that I know nothing about this city and sell me something that I want to buy.

Thread hijacked!

John W., you bring up some interesting topics. Probably worth discussing. Would you consider starting a thread under Urban Living so we can get this thread back to Roberts Tower?

Without violating confidentiality, could you clue us in to what the Roberts brothers are doing to become "green?"

My problem with the green movement is how proprietary it pretends not to be. Believe me, I think sustainability is the wisest thing. But when you've got a freaking bank advertising itself as green, you have to wonder.

You're right, spiral lightbulbs are .001% of it. But people like to pat themselves on the back. So they're going to drive to whole foods, buy yoga weekly, drive to yoga, listen to ads where some chick says "green" like 60 times, buy whatever that commercial advertises, and then smell their own farts.

The key is to get the point across that "green" is a buzzword. It defines nothing. There are changes that the construction industry can enact, like graywater systems, permeable pavement...but their clients are the ones who need to sign off on it. LEED is a step in the right direction. Would type more, but my boss is staring at me.

^^ my business is in manufacturing where we sell B2B through an extensive global distribution network. We find ourselves asking three questions regarding our green products..



(directed towards our distributers)

1. Are your customers requesting green products?

2. Are you actively pushing green products?

3. Is anyone willing to pay a premium for green products?



The answer to the first two are typically an astounding YES! However question number 3 is the kicker.



As for me, I try to do my part by powering my home and business with renewable energy credits purchased through AmerenUE's Pure Power program, by recycling, and by shopping smart. I can't say that i've jumped over into green finishings however.





I guess we'll just have to see what the market will bear. There is plenty of money in this town, let's see how we decided to spend it.

With no rating system certification, I'm sure how 'green' we can expect the tower to be, and materials and resources may just get lost in mix. I know of no either innovative or otherwise recognized alternative interior climate control approach to the mechanical systems, so it may be seen as a wash from the consumer's perspective. I've always viewed materials and resources, and certain interior air quality pollutant mitigations as the lowest hanging fruit. It's what anyone might expect to see first in a project advertised as 'green'. I'm personally less impressed by low VOC finishes and 500 mile maximum product origin radius then by the architecural reflection of the base formal response to regional climate and energy consumption. Good base form provides the inherent sustainability that is not only environmentally sustainable (by current measure), but time sustainable as well. Those bamboo floors and wheatboard cabinets will be replaced when the styles become worn, but the building form's ability to capture solar energy and provide natural interior lighting and ventilation, and provide shade from intense heat will endure. I'm more of the Ed Mazria school and a bit less from the vendor fair booths at the green products convention.

Ahh, well the whole LEED thing is mainly a consipiracy to help soccer moms feed their "feel good" egos and also serves as a way for consultants and feeder businesses to make shitloads of money. I'm laughing at the people that pay extra for this crap! But I guess if it makes them feel all warm inside, then it's worth the money for them. Heh, what a bunch of fools...



Please tell us, will the Roberts Tower have a grass roof like the other LEED buildings? Oh, I hope so!

First article wrote:Green roofs? Grass and dirt are not energy efficient. Work with me here. Which saves more energy—2 inches of dirt or 2 inches of insulation? Which saves more energy—grass or a white colored membrane? Which is more expensive and does not save energy— grass and dirt or insulation and a white colored membrane? Which needs to be watered to keep the grass from dying and blowing away? But they are beautiful and look cool. And that apparently is more important than cost and energy savings. Okay, I can live with the beautiful and looking cool argument if that is in fact the argument—but don’t clutter it with half-truths such as heat island effects and water run-off. There are other ways to deal with each.

Third article, below wrote:But, Schendler adds, "one of the reasons you'll find very few critics out there is that lots of folks make money on LEED. And it is a bit of a cabal--it's like criticizing the pope in Rome. People don't want to alienate themselves from this great emerging movement."



One Bryant Park, the future headquarters of USGBC board member Bank of America, are another story. "It's pretty frustrating that there's going to be a LEED platinum-rated glass building," Benedict says. "It's going to use obscene amounts of energy. At times, it will need to be heated and air-conditioned at the same time."

Last link below wrote:In my opinion, LEED certifications need to be completely overhauled. If it's true that many of these actually use more power than conventional buildings, that confirms that this system is highly flawed.



The problem is that most of these buildings are not going up for sustainability reasons, but for marketing. College like Hartwick can now say "Look! We are sustainable with a LEED building!" But I can assure you that Hartwick has little care in the way of sustainability.

Read more about LEED critiques to better understand the joke:



- "It's the Energy, Stupid": http://www.buildingscience.com/document ... ull_view=1

- "How to build a green building without trying (or caring about the planet): http://www.slate.com/id/2180862

- "The green standard?": http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/119 ... ndard.html

- Email exchange among architects: http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/su ... 04687.html



And I expect this to piss some people off, but that's ok. Bring some facts and then we can talk.

Architects using less glass? That's like putting a porno mag (a GOOD one, dude) in front of a 15 year old and saying "Don't you even think about it."



I agree, LEED is going to make some people a little money (not to mention the USGBC), but in a weird way, it brings to light the need to address energy conservation.

In architecture school, we learned about building form as a regional response to climate. That's something sorely lacking from the 'green' dialogue.

From what I can tell, the project does more to achieve sustainability than simply finishes and materials. By orienting the building along a strong East-West axis, the southern exposure will do a decent job of passively heating units while still cutting down on the eastern and western light that can lead to overheating. Also, the amount of daylight that will penetrate the interior spaces will undoubtedly cut down on the need for artificial lighting and save on energy costs.



Even though the project may not have green certification (did they even try to get it?), that doesn't necessarily speak to the level of sustainability it exhibits. After all, those certification systems are largely superficial, as pointed out by various recent posts.



While it may not be a zero-energy building, it will definitely be more sustainable than 95+% of buildings downtown. The attention to orientation alone makes a huge impact.

Though I wouldn't dismiss LEED, or Green Globes, or whatever the NAHB has outright, because they certainly set a respectable benchmarks for performance, but I would be concerned that the consumers of such ratings systems will simply learn to leap over the low bar currently set by such ratings systems and believe that they've done their part. This approach is a recipe for complacency when the base certifications, beneath more honorable tiers of accomplishment or innovation, don't have the project builders aspiring to much more than what they should be doing anyway. If simply meeting the requirements of ASHRAE 90.1 and 62.2 result in a bunch of self-congratulatory back patting then believe me, we're in a world of hurt.



This is a one-way street to mediocrity of achievement when calls for meeting certain challenges by 2030 are the result of current global environmental crisis. What is spelled out in the base certification requirements of LEED is what project builders should be doing already, and the expense of consultant engineers, unique product suppliers, commissioning agents and simply managing the filed paperwork with USGBC is certain to be a deterrent to developers already stretching their borrowed dollars as far as possible just to have the balance sheet pencil out. The current ratings systems are the proverbial chicken before the egg, and then hopefully the egg will be a better understood performance mandate to builders of new projects, that comes in the form of code requirement and not special reward for spending a few hundred thousand more dollars on certification plaque.

^ I'm in complete agreement John. At least the certifications systems are a half step in the right direction. But what we sorely need is a giant leap towards sustainability... come on Obama Administration!

The above comments will attest to the fact that architects at least understand the true nature of sustainability (think LEED-ND only, and throw out all of the other products), which is of course, and always, good base form. Systems cannot replace initial formal response to what the planet is already providing to us, taking from us, and throwing at us. When systems are deployed, often retroactive to construction and then as corrective measures as a result, then nothing has been accomplished and no one should believe that there has been. Systems are sustainable. Base form is sustainable. systems can help base form be more sustainable, but are not themselves the answer to sustainability. Systems and products can be easily traded in a market, and so you can bet there will be lots of corruption and deceptive claims, but I wouldn't go as far as to allege that LEED or any other ratings system is a conspiracy of some type, because it isn't. It's just a marketed product that offers a way for project builders to be more inspective of what they are actually doing, but is certainly no panacea. Sustainability is in base form, and architects can demonstrate that this is understood by making integral to a building's design the regional climate responsive form that relies little on addititive systems or products for sustainability.

^ At least architects seem to understand this. The trick for accomplishing a more sustainable future will be educating the public about what needs to done.



Humans used to have an intuitive understanding of the need for responsible reactions to climatic conditions; they had no other choice. But in our modern world, such historically commonplace notions have become lost in the sinful breeze of air conditioning and muddled in cookie-cutter boxes on the hillside.