Low-income homes go 'green'
Pioneer Press
September 5, 2005
By Beth Silver
Two sites will reuse, conserve resources
A former maternity hospital and the site of an old gas station in Minneapolis soon will be transformed into affordable housing. But just because the residents will be low-income doesn't mean the housing will be low-cost.
Developers behind the two projects plan to build environmentally friendly housing, with rain gardens, solar heat panels, energy-efficient washers and dryers, and recycled building materials.
If successful, the effort could serve as a model to encourage other Minnesota developers to go "green" — even when building affordable housing.
There's no doubt the buildings' upfront cost will be higher. For Ripley Gardens, where a maternity hospital built in 1915 will be transformed into apartments and townhouses, about $500,000 of the $15.5 million cost will go toward environmental projects. At the Wellstone Apartments, an abandoned gas station that will become an apartment building, the "green" components constitute about $300,000 of the $13.4 million project.
But with an initial investment, the goal is that the buildings and their tenants will realize longer-term savings with lower water, electric and heating bills and fewer storm water drainage fees, developers said.
"Everybody is sort of recognizing that we need to start building in these green features. The operating costs are better for the long term," said Marcia Cartwright, a real estate development specialist at Hope Community, which is partnering with the Central Community Housing Trust to develop the Wellstone. "We're starting to see a real turnaround and an acceptance, a receptivity of funding green projects. We just happen to be in the forefront."
The Minneapolis projects were among four chosen by the Minnesota Green Communities Initiative. The New San Marco Apartments in Duluth and Viking Terrace Apartments in Worthington also will attempt to construct environmentally sound properties. Together, with a combined $477,000 in initial grants, the four buildings will create 180 low-cost "green" homes in the state. Eventually, they will be eligible for a total of $12 million in grants, low-interest loans and tax credit equity.
The Minnesota projects are part of the Columbia, Md.-based Enterprise Foundation's Green Communities Initiative, which has set out to build 8,500 environmentally sound, affordable homes nationwide.
The buildings qualify as environmentally correct by incorporating energy efficiency, reusing and conserving materials and conserving water, among other things.
For environmental pieces normally found only in niche or higher-end housing, the struggle to attract developers is two-fold, said Janne Flisrand, program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities. First, she said, is educating them on unfamiliar technology. The second is proving that it's cost-effective over time. That's especially challenging when a developer sells the building immediately after it's built, she said.
At Ripley Gardens in Minneapolis' Harrison Neighborhood, the former Ripley Maternity Hospital scores environmental points just by virtue of its location at 300 Queen Ave. N. The future apartments and townhouses sit on a bus line and, at just 1.5 miles from downtown, are within biking distance from jobs and shopping.
"What they're trying to encourage is reuse of sites within the city where there's existing infrastructure," said Matthew Hendricks, project manager for Ripley Gardens. "It's like recycling on a grand scale."
The site will be transformed into 60 housing units by spring 2007. Three historical buildings will be renovated: the red-brick hospital, a baby's cottage where sick infants were quarantined and a Tudor-style home that housed nursing staff. Another three buildings will be constructed on the property and the brick dining hall, erected decades later, will be torn down, Hendricks said.
Dr. Martha Ripley started the four-story hospital to address a high mortality rate of women in childbirth. It remained open until 1956, when it was transformed into Queen Care Nursing Home. The nursing home operated until 2000. The boarded-up and vine-covered site surrounded by chain-link fence has been vacant since.
For the existing structures, which are listed on the national and local historic registers, the biggest environmental challenge is dealing with the buildings' old, single-paned windows, Hendricks said. It would save energy to install double-paned windows, but the new windows would go against the idea of preservation, Hendricks said.
But the buildings will achieve environmental points in other ways. The hospital's sealed transom windows will be re-opened. New windows will be strategically placed to bring extra lights into the units to cut down on electricity costs, Hendricks said.
Low-flow shower heads, faucets and toilets that use less water per flush will be installed, as will dishwashers that use less water and energy, he said.
Three rain gardens also will be incorporated on the grounds to capture storm water.
Many of the same environmental elements will be used at the Wellstone Apartments at Franklin and Portland avenues in the Phillips neighborhood. The project will start with cleanup of the gas station abandoned on the site about eight years ago, Cartwright said.
Refrigerators that will use 15 percent less energy than standard models will be installed, as will front-loading washing machines that save about 30 percent on energy bills and use half the water of typical machines.
The 59-unit, five-story building also will use a solar hot water system, a rarity for multi-family developments, Cartwright said. The system will cost about $60,000 and will provide 5 percent of the building's energy use, she said.
"It's something we hope might be standard or more common in affordable housing in the future," Flisrand said.
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