5 Minute Lifestyle; 5 Local Food Havens Minutes From Grow Community

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[The following is the first in our Five Minute Lifestyle series. Living at Grow Community makes getting rid of your car easy with all of your local amenities and transportation needs met within a quick 5 minute walk or bike ride away. Our Five Minute Lifestyle posts are dedicated to spotlighting nearby local businesses, community resources and the spectacular local attractions of Bainbridge Island and our surrounding community.]

Eating fresh and local on Bainbridge Island is as simple as stepping out your front door and taking a five minute walk to Downtown Bainbridge. Grow Community is uniquely situated for its future residents to enjoy the bounty of this beautiful islands local farms. We are a quick walk (or bike ride) away from restaurants which feature farm-to-table fare, the local grocery store which has deep ties to local Bainbridge farms and the local farmers market. Whether you’re looking to bring home the fixings for a local food feast, go out on the town or chat with the local farmers, you can be sure that your evenings meal supports the local economy and has made its way to your table from a farm only a few miles away. Read on for our selection of some of our favorite local food havens all within a 5 – 10 minute walk from Grow Community.

[Related: One Planet Principles; Supporting Community With Local Food]

1. Bainbridge Farmers Market.  Bainbridge locals gather at the Farmers Market every Saturday. Open 9 – 1PM, the farmers market is less than a 3rd of a mile from Grow Community. You will find here every local food need that your evening salad calls for and meet the local farmers that make it possible to eat healthy and local on Bainbridge Island. Location: Town Square at City Hall Park.

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One Planet Principles; supporting community with local food

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[The following is a guest blog post by Greg Lotakis, Project Manager at the Grow Community construction site. Construction prowess aside, Greg has been an important proponent of implementing the One Planet Communities development framework at the site, and has carefully thought about how to take One Planet Principles and turn them into a reality in Grow Community’s built environment.]

I went running a few days ago on one of Bainbridge’s waterfront trails. Between taking in the scenery on a beautiful afternoon and watching my feet so as not to fall on my face, some little details jumped out at me and I began to think about local food and agriculture on the island. Read more

First solar panels installed at Grow today, one step closer to a zero-carbon community

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The first of many solar panels are being installed today on the model homes! These are the first of thousands of panels that will be installed on the homes, apartment buildings and community buildings at Grow, helping us to create a zero-carbon community, with the goal of making all buildings zero-carbon by 2020. This means that both homeowners and renters at Grow have the opportunity to reduce their overall annual cost of living by paying little or NO energy bills! Imagine that.

Using solar panels is not anything new, as they are becoming more and more common on homes and the buildings of businesses. There are even brewers, winemakers and distillers who are gaining attention for their efforts to be more “green” (click here to see how). However, having a zero-carbon community will be quite amazing. Not to mention that if all goes as planned, this will be the largest residential solar community in Washington State.

The solar package, supplied by BlueFrog Solar, includes all Washington manufactured components: Itek photovoltaic panels – manufactured just 100 miles from here in Bellingham, Washington; APS Microinverters, also locally manufactured in Poulsbo, Washington, and racking from Sunmodo Corp. in Vancouver, Washington.

Reporting from the Grow Community, our architect, Jonathan Davis of Davis Studio Architecture & Design, had this to say:

It wasn’t a blue-sky day, but it made it easier on the installers. When the micro-inverter was plugged in the lights lit up showing we are making power!! Read more

Pricing at Grow Community to be announced this Thursday, at Grow Drinks

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This Thursday, July 12th from 7 to 9 PM, we will be gathering in the Pavilion at OfficeXPats for Grow Drinks—an evening of positive connection, wine, cheese and conversation. We will be sharing pricing at the event, so if you’ve been wondering how much a Grow home will cost, mark the date on your calendar, invite a friend, and get ready to meet the Grow Team and all the other people who are interested in life at the Grow Community. Read more

Come visit the Grow Team at the Bainbridge 4th of July street fair and take home your very own Grow basil plants!

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If you’re looking to connect with the Grow Team, why not come visit with us at our 4th of July booth at the street fair in downtown Bainbridge? The Grow Team will be at booth #64 and we’re giving away a basil plant to everyone who stops by! These little guys are starting to sprout and we hope you stop by and claim yours!

Where to find us: Bjune Dr. below the Town & Country.

When: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Go here to see a map of all the booth’s during the fair—we’re at #64!

If you’re coming from Seattle, go here for the ferry schedule. Leaving the ferry: Walk up Olympic Drive, take a left on Winslow Way E. and then another left on Bjune Drive. Take your first right to stay on Bjune Drive, and we’ll be right on your left.

Let us know in the comments or on Facebook and Twitter if we can expect to see you! We’ll hold a basil plant for you.

Grow Team

Keeping you in the loop: 5 things taking place on Grow Avenue this week

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Wondering what’s happening at the construction site on Grow Avenue this week?

A lot has been happening at the Grow Community construction site this week. You may have noticed how quickly the model homes are going up and been wondering what exactly is going on along Grow Avenue. Read on for your weekly digest of Grow Community construction news and let us know in the comments if you have any questions. Read more

Rio+20: BioRegional endorses the Grow Community as a One Planet Community.

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We’re excited to announce that Pooran Desai, founder of BioRegional and champion of the One Planet Living framework, announced at Rio+20 today the official endorsement of the Grow Community as a One Planet Community. Calling it, ‘the best place to live in the USA’, Pooran introduced the Grow Community, and Asani, to a diverse group of international leaders and business leaders as a turning point in North American sustainable development.

From BioRegional: In July 2005, Money Magazine and CNN named Bainbridge Island the second-best place to live in the United States. Even Brad and Jennifer (when they were married) were spotted looking at potential real estate on the island.  Well, there is a community now being constructed on Bainbridge Island which might push Bainbridge Island into that top spot.   

[Related: Rio+20, and the future we want (Video)]

Interested in learning more about One Planet Living, and what it means for our future? Check out this video with Grow Architect, Jonathan Davis, of DavisStudioAD:


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Rio+20, and the future we want [Video].

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Rio+2o is happening right now and everyone on the Grow Community staff is really excited and will be following the action in every way possible. Not sure what Rio+20 is all about, or why the Grow Community might be in a tizzy about it?

Rio+20 is the name being given this year to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) which is being held this year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), popularly called Earth Summit. Rio+20 is a key follow-up conference and milestone in a series of UN conferences based on the 1992 UNCED conference in Rio. The main goals of Rio+20 are securing renewed commitments from world leaders on sustainable development, assessing the progress of earlier commitments and addressing new and emerging challenges.

In addition to the stated goals of the conference, two major themes are being addressed and will be a key focus by the many speakers, workshops and side events taking place at Rio+20:

At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want.

This video explains Rio+20 in just over a minute.*


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This week at the Grow site: Building energy efficiency (and savings) right into the walls.

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A lot has been happening at the Grow Community construction site this week and we want to make sure you’re kept in the loop! Last week we talked about the air barrier being put up on the Aria which left some residents wondering if we were painting all of the homes at Grow black. We know that with a project this size there will be lots of questions
and general curiosity from the community, so read on for your weekly digest of construction updates at the Grow Community and please let us know in the comments if you have any feedback or if there’s anything specific you would like us to address in a future blog post.

Energy Efficiency is the Name of the Game at Grow this Week 

Energy efficiency is about more than turning down the heat.  And we have always said that living at Grow isn’t all about warm beers and cold showers.  While residents will need to be mindful of their energy use in order to achieve net-zero energy in their homes, we have put an incredible amount of thought into how we can design homes that will be inherently energy efficient, and even more than that, homes that will be comfortable. You won’t be chilly in these homes. We promise.

In order to achieve this, it’s necessary to build the savings right into the walls. Creating enough solar energy to power an entire home with the amount of space available on most roofs’ is very difficult, so the goal  Read more

Grow Drinks Was a Huge Success! Thank You all For Participating!

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Our second Grow Drinks was a huge success! We really enjoyed meeting with everybody and being able to share our vision and ideas for the Grow Community and to hear all of your feedback and listen to your thoughts.

We had expected to give a simple presentation and then mingle with the crowd, but instead, an amazing thing happened: 

Our simple presentation turned into a lively round-table style discussion that felt truly unique and collaborative. We felt very connected to the community and everyone who’s interested in the project in that moment. It’s extremely important for us to be able to enter into conversations about the Grow Community and One Planet Living so we can design a better community for all.

We were honored to have Geof Syphers, an early proponent of the One Planet Living framework in North America, and lead on the Sonoma Mountain Village project, join our discussion and to be able to provide his insight and experience with One Planet Living and sustainable development.

So, in the spirit of last night’s event, we invite you to keep the conversation moving forward with us and to please send us your thoughts here on the blog, on Facebook and Twitter or to join our mailing list for news and updates.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our next Grow Drinks, on July 12th! But don’t worry, we’ll post an update to remind you.

Thank you!

The Grow Team