Memphis Business Journal - by Andy Ashby -

University Place, once the site of the dilapidated Lamar Terrace public housing project, is now one of a dozen developments worldwide to have achieved a new, wholistic environmental certification.

LEED Neighborhood Development, or LEED-ND as it is called, is a new trend which looks at environmentally sound neighborhoods instead of just environmentally sound buildings. It could also mean higher rents and lower operating costs for residential and commercial developments.

University Place is a 405-unit HOPE VI community sitting on 30 acres at Lamar Avenue and I-240.
It was completed in 2009, but only recently received its LEED ND certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

McCormack Baron Salazar, one of the developers of the project, also got a LEED-ND designation for its Renaissance Place development in St. Louis in late 2010.

University Place is the first completed LEED-ND project in Tennessee and one of about a dozen worldwide which have been certified and completed, according to Bill Carson, vice president of operations strategy and director of sustainability with St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar.

The LEED-ND rating system integrates principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national certification system that provides independent, third-party verification that a development’s location and design meet accepted high levels of environmentally responsible, sustainable development, Carson says.
The Green Building Council, Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Natural Resources Defense Council launched the LEED-ND pilot in 2007 and accepted 350 projects around the world to test the concept to turn it into program.

Of those, 65 have been certified with a plan, but not all of those are completed.

“This is for entire neighborhoods,” Carson says. “It’s really looking at the future of how builders need to consider the way they build, where they build and how they build for the 21st century.”

University Place received LEED points from its connections to surrounding amenities and bus lines.

Environmentally sensitive construction techniques also were employed to ensure that brownfield contamination, storm water runoff and pollution from construction activities were significantly reduced or completely abated.

The site has a one-acre pond, which serves as stormwater retention for the majority of runoff while presenting a nice entrance to the transformed neighborhood.

The design team also avoided environmental disruptions by using pre-existing water and wastewater infrastructure, restoring the historic street grid and using a dense design that helps to minimize unnecessary land use.

LEED-ND involves designing neighborhoods near amenities such as shops, services and parks, which promotes walking and biking, according to Jeremy Benkin, vice president with CB Richard Ellis Memphis and president of the Green Building Council’s Memphis chapter.
“There are countless benefits, but I think the significant one for Memphis is that research points to the fact that communities built with the features that you find in LEED-ND communities are healthier communities,” he says.
Octavia Johnson-Norman is area manager for McCormack Baron Ragan Management Services LLC, the company which manages and leases University Place.

“University Place is a walkable neighborhood because we’re connected to services like schools, hospitals and retail,” she says.

Walkability and being adjacent to a bus route means less automobile usage among residents, which helped gain LEED-ND certification.

“It helps us to retain tenants here and bring in new people because we can offer those services,” Johnson-Norman says.

The development also has a wide variety of apartments, from efficiencies to four-bedroom units, providing affordable rents for a wide range of people.

McCormack Baron Ragan Management Services is touting LEED-ND in its marketing brochures.
“Utilities are lower living here, which we use as a marketing tool,” Johnson-Norman says. “Being LEED also helps with the occupancy rate.”

University Place is currently 99 percent occupied with an average in the high 90s. The surrounding area averages 90 percent occupancy, according to Johnson-Norman.

Memphis-based Taylor Waller Development LLC is seeking the LEED ND designation for developments in Whitehaven and Downtown.

Company president Gay Taylor, a retired FedEx Corp. engineering manager, completed the city of Memphis’ Diversity Developer Incubator curriculum in 2009. The 13-week class teaches how to become a developer, from financing to construction.

At the end of the program, students submit a proposal for the chance to develop a project. She and her son won the contest and were awarded 7.2 developable acres on Elvis Presley Boulevard, across from Whitehaven High School.

Taylor Waller Development is planning 17 single family homes on the site.

“We definitely wanted to get LEED certification for the neighborhood,” Taylor says. “We’re trying to develop high-quality, energy-efficient housing in an area which hasn’t seen much development recently.”

Taylor Waller Development is also redeveloping a 14,900-square-foot building Downtown at 26 S. Main St.
The 101-year-old building will have ground-floor office with apartments above.

“We’re also looking for LEED-ND on that one,” Taylor says. “We want to take this old building and make it energy efficient. It’s one of those nameless buildings you probably pass by all the time without knowing it’s there.”

LEED-ND not only looks at how efficient a building or community is, but how it fits into the surrounding area. Proximity to public transit and reusing existing buildings give points toward LEED certification.

“You’re not contributing to sprawl and to decay in the inner city,” she says.

LEED projects have lower utilities which means lower operating costs, something which appeals to tenants and landlords, according to Taylor.

“It also appeals to people with a higher social conscious and the more affluent,” she says. “You can get more for rents on those buildings as opposed to going for cheaper construction. I definitely wanted to go green and was looking for something I could do which would be positive for the communities, but which we could make money.”

Taylor hopes that LEED-ND can become more prevalent in Memphis, a city which has suffered from sprawl.

“Memphis is a bit of a challenge in that people don’t know a lot about LEED,” she says.

Commercially, it is gaining momentum as more companies take advantage of lowering operating costs, but residential is lagging.

“Once people understand the benefits of it, I think it’ll catch on,” Taylor says.