tleavitt

LEED and Modern Infill Development in OTR My wife and I are the owners of 1514 Race St., referred to as one of the examples of "modern infill". What I wanted to write about here was how LEED also plays into what we are doing and why. First a bit of background is helpful. We lived in London England for 16 years prior to coming to Cincinnati. We lived here back in 1983-1984, and like others now with grown children, we felt the urge to move from our prior more suburban location to something more central. OTR fit the bill. We looked around for warehouse and loft space, which isn't Cincinnati's specialty and then looked at 3CDC redevelopment opportunities. Given our clear objectives were to have lots of light and outdoor space, the (reasonable) constraints of Cincinnati historic preservation moved us in the direction of infill development. LEED comes into play not just because there are tax abatements to be had but energy efficiency and environmental considerations seem to be a natural part of urban building. We have called our building "The Stannary" because it evokes the one of the places we lived in London -- light, vertical, interesting use of materials. . Compare to what 1514 Race looks like in its current state. Ours are the top two floors, and we are renting the others as AirBnB apartments. With LEED, things like solar heating and water retention/management are important things. The former was a bit impractical on a property like ours, but the latter seemed pretty doable. We bought two adjacent lots, which in the grand scheme of a building project wasn't prohibitive. Few people tend to say down the road that they regret having bought a bit of extra land. Having bought 50' of street front instead of 25', this allowed us to leave 5' to 13' on each side of the building to create private space, allow in light, and to allow for water retention systems. We are doing this through a combination of landscape areas, permeable pavers instead of concrete, and a couple of water butts. That's the outside. Inside is a bit more behind the scenes. Much of what is done seems pretty straightforward -- LED everywhere, low-flow plumbing, renewable lumber resource (or recycled), etc. etc. One that I found was a new one were the Mitsubishi Mini Splits for HVAC. They allow you to have multiple zones on a single floor and really seem to help with energy efficiency. We did have an extended discussion with our LEED consultants regarding the type of insulation to use. There were questions about closed-cell vs. open-cell and in the end, we had spray, close-cell insulation throughout the building. The fact is that none of this comes inexpensively, but like others here, the use of good building materials and energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly practices will hopefully pay off down the road. Fingers crossed that the energy bills are much lower than we are sometimes used to. We don't yet know whether LEED leads (pardon the pun) to a good or better rating - Silver or Gold-certified in their terminology. If nothing else, you end up with a place you feel good about regarding its standing in the community and in terms of use of our shared resources. If you are looking for help going through this process, there are local consultants who know all the ins and outs of navigating LEED. Given all the specific steps, it might be worth getting the help for anyone considering the LEED process.