A Living Roof for a Neglected Building

Categories

• Renewable Energy

Location

Project Started On

The Englewood Community Development Corporation is a small, non-profit organization that aims to rejuvenate neglected areas of Indianapolis. We wanted to add a green component to our next project, so we bought a boarded-up, dilapidated commercial building located on a very rough and busy corner and added life, softness, and sustainability with the addition of a green roof. The eco-roof is just the first phase of the plan - we ultimately plan to green the rest of the lot and the interior of the building as well.

The green movement on the whole was a huge inspiration - but the biggest inspiration was our vision of reviving our neglected neighborhood. Many of us at Englewood had become pretty fascinated with “green technologies” such as green roofs. It may sound funny, but we read a lot of library books and talked about what kind of development we’d like to see more of in our neighborhood and in our world. Right at about that time, the opportunity was there to purchase this building. Now we were faced with having to “practice what we preach” so to speak.

Beyond that, we really felt like a green roof was almost needed at this location. This intersection is so fast and so hard (in every sense of the word), we wanted to do something green, something slow, something soft, and something restful as a counterbalance. We just thought it would be hilarious to help develop Indianapolis first green roof at that intersection. For most people, it just doesn’t make sense to do that kind of high-end development at THAT location, but we knew it was exactly the spot that needed it the most.

1. For the green roof to plant seeds for more green roofs within Indianapolis. A local company, Firestone Building Products Co., took us under their wing - donating supplies and services and made the roof a Green Roof Test Project. Over 100 architects, engineers, and building owners have viewed the roof in just a few months since its completion. Other green roofs are now being planned because of this modest local example.

2. To really improve this location aesthetically, build neighborhood pride and bring the community closer together.

3. To demonstrate energy efficiency, but also water efficiency. By maintaining the small lawn behind the building and using pervious concrete, we hope to achieve a 100% pervious site.

4. Finally, we wanted every square inch of this property (including the roof) to be about community development. We’ve tried to think through every square foot and every building elevation and say “what is in the best interests of the surrounding neighborhood”. To this end, the front brick façade was restored, the side elevation will serve as signage for the adjacent pocket park, and will also feature a community marquee with changeable letters to highlight upcoming neighborhood events, festivals, or celebrate successes within our community.

We really just started with a lot of faith in our idealism, and it led to a lot of very fortunate circumstances. We began developing a vision for the green roof as early as October 2006. Indianapolis hosted a Green Roofs for Healthy Communities symposium in January 2007. We presented at the symposium as a “case study”, though all we had was a small building and a vision. We were quite the contrast to the other presenters - who were all very high-end, high-budget projects. After I spoke, the first person who approached me was Jim Burkett from Firestone Building Products. He said that Firestone had been looking for a Test Roof and asked if we’d be interested.

Being a non-profit community organization, finding funding and building support was a huge part of our process. We were awarded grant money from both the local and state government, which gave us some seed money to begin the project. In addition to Firestone's generous support, we had a lot of help from our community.

The actual construction of the roof was from May 2007 to September 2007. The formal building process began with having a structural engineer asses the integrity of the building itself. Since the building had been abandoned for so long, it needed a fair amount of work.

We had a ton of volunteer support to get it all done:
- A mix of volunteers and professionals from Englewood CDC helped to replace the roof deck and add needed roof joists and interior supports.
- A local architect donated his time to provide a proposed roof design.
- A local roofing company, in conjunction with Firestone, donated its labor to install 4” of poly-iso roof insulation and a new Firestone TPO roof membrane.
- We’ve left a portion of the roof as a “white roof” to demonstrate this low-tech green technology (and as a free space for mechanicals).
Firestone really took the lead on the majority of the green roof coordination and construction.
- In June 2007 we installed the AVRS Garden System from Columbia Green Roof Technologies. The AVRS system was constructed on site and planted from plugs. This system includes a drip irrigation system.
- In September 2007 we installed the LiveRoof - a eco-roof system that was pregrown in a nursery and is relatively maintenance-free.

It has vastly exceeded our expectations!

Over 100 architects, engineers, and building owners have viewed the roof in just a few months since its completion. Other green roofs are now being planned because of this modest local example.

It has raised the visibility of this property and made it much more attractive to potential tenants. Tenants will obviously benefit from energy savings but many other benefits which are harder to quantify. We're being very choosy about selecting a tenant. We really want to see this location become a cornerstone for the community. It's important to us to have a tenant who shares our goal of neighborhood rejuvenation.

The community response has been amazing. It's become a real source of community pride. Neighbors are very excited about it. Honestly, we’re almost swamped with requests to see it or talk about it.

I think having a clear vision from the very beginning is really important. We were lucky enough to have several great partners who were equally motivated to make this happen.

In terms of the technical aspects - getting a structural engineer to evaluate the building is essential. Even a low-density eco-roof adds about 15 pounds of weight per square foot. Like any building project, you have to make sure that what's existing can support what's to come.

A green roof doesn't necessarily have as concrete of a payback plan as other sustainability projects can have. The benefits accrue to others beyond the building owner or tenants. The financial benefits don’t fit so nicely into a ten year “payback period”. But the benefits reach far beyond pocketbooks, adding greenspace, especially in areas that are sorely lacking it, changes the dynamics of a location completely. We estimated that over one million cars zoom by this particular intersection each year. In addition to the benefits of insulation to the building, the greening of this corner also cleans the air, slows traffic down, and will hopefully be the catalyst for more neighborhood-wide rejuvenation.

For non-profits like us, we definitely recommend looking into a wide range of partnerships. We’re a very small church based building owner who partnered with a major worldwide corporation (Firestone), a local beautification not-for-profit (Keep Indianapolis Beautiful) and the Indiana Department of Energy & Defense. Green projects seem to yield strange but exciting marriages.

This was our first green project, however, we hope to include sustainability practices and green design into the future housing rehab work that we do.

We still have a lot of plans in store for this site. We hope to install raised bed planting boxes (with tall grasses or small trees) along the west elevation in Spring 2008. We’ll also build a seating deck and stairs off the back of the building in Spring 2008. Those plans are complete, but the money still needs to be raised. Currently, the roof is only accessible from a ladder. We’d like for the seating deck to function as a semi-controlled public space more like the adjacent pocket-park, rather than controlled solely by the eventual building tenant.

Useful Links

http://www.in.gov/energy/grants/Spotlight.html

Indiana Office of Energy & Defense: one of our grantors

http://www.firestonebpco.com

Firestone Building Products: our wonderful sponsor!