Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Groundbreaking energy-saving development breaks ground in NoLibs

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A revolution in American home building arrived in the Philadelphia region today in the form of a five-townhome development at Fourth and Brown streets in Northern Liberties.

Ground was officially broken at 11 a.m. today for Foundry Court, the region?s first net zero energy residential development.

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Solar collector and backhoe loader on the site

All the necessary equipment to get started was in position. No, the solar collector doesn't power the backhoe loader; it was there to power the display screens and audio equipment inside the groundbreaking tent.

As we reported earlier, a net zero energy home is not the same thing as living off the grid, but it?s about as close as one could possibly get in a large Northeastern city. Features like geothermal heat pumps for climate control, Energy Star appliances, green roofs and structurally insulated panels for wall cores drastically reduce energy consumption and water runoff, while passive solar collectors on the roof generate more power than the home consumes on sunny days, enabling owners to feed power back to the grid and offset net power consumption from the grid on cloudy days. The net result: an annual electricity bill of $0.

This project is the first of its kind in the Philadephia region. Anthony Ingargolia, vice president of business development for builder Nexus EnergyHomes, said, ?We?d been scouting locations throughout the region? in search of a suitable site for its first area project. ?The Philadelphia area is in the middle of a serious housing downturn, but the home building market in the city is strong.?

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Architect's rendering of the project in its urban setting

Another distinctive feature of the Foundry Court homes is that they combine high-tech energy-efficient construction with neotraditional design - most "green" homes signal their difference through ultra-contemporary style.

Nexus executives and elected officials showered effusive praise on all concerned in their speeches at the groundbreaking. ?Sometimes we in government talk too much and do too little,? said City Council President Darrell Clarke, in whose Fifth Councilmanic District the project just barely sits. ?I?m proud to say that these people are actually doing.?

Alex Dews of the Mayor?s Office of Sustainability noted that the project advances Mayor Michael Nutter?s goal of making Philadelphia the ?greenest city in the country,? while Nexus EnergyHomes President Paul Zenecki added that it helped his company advance towards its goal of being ?the nation?s leader in performance housing.?

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Nexus President Paul Zenecki

Nexus EnergyHomes President Paul Zenecki

And just what is ?performance housing?? It?s housing that lives lightly on the earth, so to speak: it maximizes the use of easily renewable resources, minimizes energy and water consumption, and saves homeowners money, all at affordable prices. Many of the features incorporated into these homes also make them unusually quiet on the inside: ?You won?t hear the noise of the bus at night,? Zenecki said.

The homes meet Emerald Certification standards, the highest green building standards set out by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). ?At the groundbreaking, Nexus officials thanked the NAHB Research Center for its work developing some of the technologies that have gone into this development and promoting their use through green building standards. ?They?re doing for residential construction what the LEED (Leadership in Environmental Efficiency and Design) standards did for commercial construction a few years ago,? Ingargolia?said.

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Alex Dews

Alex Dews of the Mayor's Office of Sustainability

Ingargolia noted that while Foundry Court is a high-end development, Nexus is not a luxury home builder: ?We build high-quality homes no matter what the price range,? he says. The company is actively seeking larger sites within the city and region where it can build equally green housing for less by taking advantage of economies of scale, but he added, ?We can also do it affordably on a smaller scale.?

Joining in the enthusiastic sendoff for the project was Coldwell Banker Preferred Old City agent Carol Diament, who will market the Foundry Court development. ?She?s not only our Realtor, she?s our first buyer,? explained Nexus Senior Vice President Ann Ashley.

?In 1983, I had a home with a geothermal heat pump before anyone knew what those were,? Diament explained. The agent, who had sold her previous home last year, had been actively looking for environmentally friendly housing when she was made aware of Nexus? work. ?I had wanted to build a new house, and there was nothing else I could imagine buying once I found out what they were involved in.?

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Darrell Clarke

City Council President Darrell Clarke (D-5th District)

As a first-day sales incentive, buyers who entered into a sales agreement on groundbreaking day received $10,000 credit towards additional energy-saving items for their home. Several Nexus representatives suggested an electric vehicle charging station, a nod to Ford Motor Company, which showed up at the event to tout its line of environmentally friendly cars, including an all-electric version of the Ford Focus. ?If you put a charging station in your home and purchase an American electric car, you can get your home off the grid and off gas,? Ashley said. (As required by the old Philadelphia zoning code and as is standard for upper-end homes, each of these townhomes includes garage parking for one car.)

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Anthony Ingargolia

Anthony Ingargolia, vice president of business development, Nexus EnergyHomes

The homes cost about five percent more to build than equivalent conventional homes, but a 20- to 30-percent Federal tax credit more than offsets the added cost. And on top of that, there?s the city?s 10-year property tax abatement.

According to both Ashley and Diament, it was likely that one of the remaining four homes would go under agreement today. The project should be complete sometime shortly after the new year.

-By Sandy Smith for PhiladelphiaRealEstate.com

All photos by the author

Source: http://blog.philadelphiarealestate.com/groundbreaking-energy-saving-development-breaks-ground-in-nolibs/

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