Construction update: We DIG the dirt!

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Whether you’re planting a garden or a new foundation, you have to dig in the dirt!

With Grow Community phase 2 site work underway, excavators and earth movers are rolling to and fro to prepare the foundations for the Salal and Juniper. Dirt is being stockpiled on the south half of the property, soil that will come into play as backfill once the parking garage foundations and lid are completed.

Concrete work will begin even as excavation for the rest of the garage continues. It may be hard to see all this underground work from the street, but the garage structure will soon be visible, poking up out of the ground in the coming weeks and months.

Trees removed during the site work are moving on to their next purpose. Root balls have been saved for use in salmon habitat development in spawning streams, while some of the trees themselves will be refined into custom furniture by an island craftsman.

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Summer’s glow warms us still

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Even as we slip into a lovely high autumn, we can still take a fond look back to Grow Community’s summer garden party.

Residents of the Village celebrated the rich greenery and edible bounty found throughout the neighborhood with a festive and tasty afternoon get-together.

Flowers in glorious bloom. Vegetables ripe and ready. And neighbors who give the Northwest’s greenest community its amity and spirit. Now that was a day worth celebrating.

We’re already looking ahead to next summer!

October Education Session: Innovations in Net Zero Energy Construction

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401859-250When: Wednesday, Oct 22nd, 7-9pm
Where: Phinney Neighborhood Association, lower brick building
Link: http://www.ecobuilding.org/events/net-zero-innovations

Please join the Northwest Eco Building Guild Wednesday October 22nd, 2014 for a session focused on the innovations to get us to net zero energy buildings.

Speakers:

Dan Whitmore – built Seattle’s first Passive House. He leads trainings on Passive House building throughout the country and is a designer, builder and consultant.

Greg Lotakis – is the Grow Community Project Manager and Sustainability Expert who has been managing the sophisticated systems and design details that have garnered great praise for Grow Community, the state’s largest solar community.

Graydon Manning – is an energy consultant with the goal to make Net Zero building permitting with DPD a stream lined program with shorter review times & with one on one consulting.

 

EcoBuilding Conference 2014 | Building Transformation Through Transparency

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October 10th 2014,

The Impact Hub in Pioneer Square, Seattle

Hi Friends/Colleagues,
401859-250
Some of you know about my volunteer involvement with the NW EcoBuilding Guild. I would like to share my excitement about this year’s upcoming main Regional event – a one-day conference at the Impact Hub in Pioneer Square. Some of you may have attended the “Retreat” in past years, and EcoBuilding 2014 is the result of a transformation of that long cherished event.

Please see the line-up of speakers here http://www.ecobuilding.org/retreat/speakers, REGISTER here http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/779337, and share the excitement with your networks. There is definitely a variety of topics for many audiences – single family, multifamily, case studies, tech talks, policy talks, etc..

Our planning committee has set the awesome goal of selling out for this event in order to:

a) educate and connect more people in the industry;

b) increase awareness of the Guild’s mission and programs; and

c) raise some needed funds for the excellent programming we provide to the green building community.

We are a volunteer run organization that is playing a huge role in the advancement of green building practices in our region. Please join us for this exciting time event.

Hope to see you there.
Greg Lotakis, Grow Community Project Manager

 

Community spirit bring a bumper harvest at Grow Community

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Posted to BioRegional Blog
September 26, 2014

Grow resident Ron Kaplan shares how self-sufficiency and community spirit have come together for a bumper harvest at Grow Community, as edibles sprout up in time for Local & Sustainable Food month.

grow-gardens

Edibles in the new Bainbridge Island neighborhood are sprouting up in time for Local and Sustainable Food month, even amongst the native landscaping. On one footpath, tomatoes grow side by side with fronded ferns. “Only in the Northwest, huh?” says Ron Kaplan, a resident of the uber-green development now taking shape a short ferry ride across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle. Grow Community’s first neighborhood – dubbed the Village, one of three phases in a planned 8-acre project – was designed to reflect and promote sustainability at every turn. Rooftop solar provides much of the power for each home, while the residents share bicycles to reach merchants and services in nearby Winslow town center.

The One Planet Living principles so foundational to the project encourage the sharing of locally grown, organic food. So the signature stroke for both self-sufficiency and a communitarian spirit may be the neighborhood P-patch gardens that nestle amongst the close-knit, architecturally arresting homes. Autumn finds the first three designated gardens a veritable cornucopia overflowing with onions, pumpkins, spinach, peas, eggplant, kale, chard, exotic herbs and other delectables. Grapes and other vine fruits hang from trellises in the wings.

The neighborhood organized a community potluck in late August to celebrate the bounty — and the shared endeavor it represents. “There was a lot of good food, all based on vegetables from the gardens,” Kaplan says. “And it was another excuse for people to get together.” The gardeners are still finding a certain equilibrium between their own tastes and the collective palate. The recent harvest produced a surfeit of beans and squash, says Kaplan, confessing his own complicity in a bumper crop of fiery hot peppers. But any excess just gets carted up the street to Helpline House, the local food bank.

“It wasn’t the Soviet Union model of centralized planning,” Kaplan says. “One of the lessons is, next year there might be more coordination about what’s planted.” More raised beds are now going in next to a just-completed apartment building at the project’s north end, and new residents there will assume their own stewardship of the soil or fall into other neighborhood roles. At Grow Community, Kaplan says, everyone chips in according to their interests and abilities, but the harvest is open to all. “People contribute to the community in different ways,” he says. “I’m putting my time into the gardens, others are putting their time into something else. But they should all be able to harvest – so they do.”

A Construction Update for the Grove

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DCIM100MEDIAAs the kids head back to school and we are all enjoying those cool mornings and warm afternoons of Indian Summer, the work on the Grove – our next neighborhood at the Grow Community – is ramping up. The homes along John Adams have been decommissioned with materials recycled, donated to local “re-use” organizations, and salvaged prior to demolition. The site and utility work has begun in earnest with earth moving and excavating equipment on site and construction fencing in place to secure the perimeter of the property. It is a big project so we have had to get excavator hire mackay to make sure we stay on schedule. There will quite a few different contractors on the site in the coming weeks, from electricians to bricklayers to earthmovers so it’s important that the project remains coordinated as things can easily get out of hand at this point in a project.

The site and utility work will continue through the fall with the work on the underground parking garage overlapping by four to five weeks. The above ground structures will be the next major activity once the garage is well underway. We hope that the changes we are making will help shape and change the local area into an even better, more vibrant community. An exciting time for this next phase of the community!

If you are willing to donate some of your time then we would be more than grateful for anyone to come and help us out. Don’t worry, you don’t need any construction qualifications – we are looking to plant some shrubs and trees once work is finished to help bring more life to the area. Keep an eye out for further details!

Building for Generations

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The neighborhoods at Grow have intergenerational living at their heart – because a true community should be “as welcoming to a 73-year-old as it is to a 3-year-old.”

In our new neighborhoods, the Grove and the Park, sixty percent of the homes offer single-level living with elevator access to front entries, and the community spaces invite interaction and sharing between generations year-round.

And accessibility extends beyond the neighborhood. You’re just 5 minutes from downtown amenities like shops, restaurants and theaters – even ice cream.

If you haven’t visited yet, come find out more about intergenerational living at Grow Community at our sales office, 180 Olympic Drive SE, right next to the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal. The office is open noon to 5pm, Tuesday through Sunday. Or see www.growbainbridge.com

 

Grow is a Solar Builder Magazine finalist!

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Grow Community is one of six finalists for Solar Builder magazines’s prestigious 2014 Project of the Year award.

Grow was nominated in the Roof-Mount installation category. The annual contest honors innovative applications of solar technology in residential and commercial settings.

Grow Community, is already the largest planned solar community in Washington state. The award-winning community has been designed around the idea that homes should produce all the energy their residents would need (net-zero impact) while capturing the financial benefits that come with producing renewable energy.

The 112kW (and growing) solar component is powered by Made-In-Washington equipment including PV modules by itek Energy of Bellingham and microinverters by Blue Frog/APS of Poulsbo/Bainbridge Island. Installation is by A&R Solar of Seattle, with solar financing by Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union.

The winning project will be featured on the cover of the next issue of Solar Builder magazine, and will be honored at a special ceremony at the Solar Power International convention in Las Vegas, Oct. 20-23.

VOTE FOR GROW HERE!

 

 

ULI Tour: Cultivating a Sustainable Local Economy

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Grow Community held center stage when the Urban Land Institute visited Bainbridge Island yesterday.

ULI members looked at Bainbridge as a prototype for “Cultivating a Sustainable Local Economy” — encouraging responsible growth, resource conservation, diversity and density while retaining the island’s rich cultural heritage.

The program also included stops at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and the Ericksen Cottages development, capped by a visit to Winslow’s Hitchcock restaurant.

The event was organized by ULI’s Thriving Communities Task Force, which studies arts communities, public amenities and leadership in sustainable development.

Thank you to the Urban Land Institute for recognizing Grow Community as a model of urban planning and sustainability!

 

 

Grow Community Tree Honoring Ceremony

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We came together on one of the cooler nights we had seen in a while, a Wednesday. It was calm and comfortable. The type of quiet summer evening you spend walking/reflecting.

So we did. Five of us met at the Welcome Garden in the Village at Grow Community Bainbridge, and set out toward the next phase of Grow, the Grove and the Park. The purpose: to honor the trees that would give way to what was to come.

A light canvas drum was tapped to our slow pace as we skirted the boundary between new and old. We considered the future as each of us glanced from our beautifully prepared program to the soft sway of the tree branches.

The ceremony moved through Japanese prayers for honor, to short poems, to telling short stories of memories filled with trees. We were called to acknowledge that as trees are biologically connected and change with their seasons, they are an example of community and how we can live more healthy lives by being better connected to each other.

Each tree serves a purpose. At Grow, we hold a delicate balance between sculpting a site so anyone can be comfortable moving within it, to creating appropriate density, to allowing for solar production.

As we begin to remove trees for our future development we want to take a moment to give thanks for all they have been, what they will be, and how they have provided for all of us.

To help reduce our impact we are working with a local woodshop to salvage trees for purposeful reuse. We will be working with our site contractor to see that portions of trees and their base (root wad) can be used on future projects for salmon habitat and stream bank restoration. We will use what is left to provide firewood for our workers and mulch to protect our site from erosion and sediment discharge.

While it is always hard to see the taking of trees, we challenge others, as we have, to consider ways in which the impact of development can be reduced by pursuing creative reuse.

As we neared the completion of our ceremony we asked each other to share the story of an experience with a tree. It made me consider what memories will be created with all the new trees to come at Grow.

If you would, share your story/memory of a tree and help us honor those that make way for the new at Grow. My memory is of a scraggly birch in Alaska that was just wide enough to keep me from being charged by a moose. We honor all you provide.

By Greg Lotakis, Grow Team