Articles About Green

Richard M. Daley dropped a bombshell on Chicago with his announcement that – after serving as mayor for 21 years, longer than his father Richard J. Daley – he would not seek an unprecedented seventh term.  As citizens and pundits pondered the reasoning behind the decision and political hopefuls immediately started jockeying to be his […]

In Chicago’s – and one of the nation’s — largest commercial transactions of 2010, the 60-story, 1.3 million SF 300 North LaSalle Street skyscraper was sold for a whopping $655 million.  That adds up to $500 PSF. The buyer was KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II (KBS REIT II). The LEED Gold certified building, which […]

It’s surprising that the AIA still does not endorse LEED standards for green buildings.  There has been some progress in forming some kind of strategic alliance, but that is only in the area of advocacy, education and research.  There is still nothing concrete.  Nevertheless, the Architecture 2030 Bulletin and the AIA 2030 Commitment story are […]

A North London supermarket is growing organic fruits and vegetables in a rooftop garden tended by 20 volunteers aged from three to their 60s.  Thornton’s Budgens calls its project Food from the Sky. The nonprofit venture is a collaboration between Thornton’s Budgens, The Positive Earth Project (a local social enterprise) and the Crouch End community.  […]

A once-abandoned 40-acre industrial site in Chicago’s West Pullman neighborhood has become home to 32,000 solar panels since December, part of the nation’s largest solar plant capable of generating 10 megawatts of clean power. That’s enough to power 1,500 homes.  According to Kevin Lynch, who trains electricians to install solar panels for the International Brotherhood […]

Three years after an EF5 tornado tore apart tiny Greensburg, KS, the town of approximately 900 is making a conscious effort to rebuild itself as a green community. City officials, residents and business owners are leading by example, making Greensburg a national model for environmentally conscious living. For example, a wind farm five miles south […]

Home Depot, NCR are greening their companies. Fortune 500 companies are increasingly using energy-saving measures in their corporate real estate.  Some firms are retrofitting warehouses to conserve energy or are applying Japanese principles to building design and operation. Home Depot, for example, has 2,245 retail stores comprising 235 million SF nationally, owns 89 percent of […]

The end may be in sight to phase out CO2-emitting coal by 2030, according to Architecture 2030 a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization established in response to the global-warming crisis.  That conclusion comes from researchers at leading institutions such as NASA, NREL, Architecture 2030 and Columbia University. The paper issued by the institutions – titled […]

Wells Fargo & Company and LNR Property Corporation are hunting for buyers for $1 billion each of distressed commercial real estate assets and loans.  San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest commercial real estate lender, is soliciting bids on $500 million to $1 billion worth of office and hotels.  LNR, the nation’s largest CBMS special […]

Although upwards of 800 towering wind turbines provide power to countries like Denmark, Britain and other European countries, the United States has engaged in a 10-year debate over constructing Cape Wind, its first offshore wind farm planned for the south side of Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound and recently given the go-ahead by Secretary of […]