By Lydia Wheeler
lydia.wheeler@insidebiz.com
Temperatures on the Friday before Mother's Day had crept into the mid-80s by 10 a.m., as Christy Everett led members of the media through a shell of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Brock Environmental Center, under construction at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach.
"Doesn't that breeze feel great,"she said while standing in what will be the public conference and training room.
The windows that are now cutouts in the wall will be open on nice days in the summer to cool the building naturally with southwest breezes. The building was designed to curve to the south to pick up the wind and natural light.
Everett is the Hampton Roads director of the nonprofit organization, which is building the region's first "net zero" power, water and waste facility named after its two main donors, Joan and Macon Brock. Macon Brock is one of the co-founders of Dollar Tree.
Opening in November, the community education center will house the foundation's educational facility and its Hampton Roads staff, as well as the offices of Lynnhaven River Now, an environmental group dedicated to reducing pollution in the Lynnhaven River.
Construction of the 10,000-square-foot building is expected to cost $5 million to $6 million and CBF is hoping it will be LEED Platinum-certified and earn the state's first Living Building Challenge certification.
Green features include 162 solar panels that will produce 60 percent of the energy, two 80-foot wind turbines that will produce the additional 40 percent, geothermal wells to heat and cool the building and compostable toilets.
The toilets will not use any water. Solid waste will be mixed with wood chips and stored in large black bins in an enclosed room under the building. Solid waste from the Brock Environmental Center, Everett said, will produce two to five wheelbarrows of compost a year. The liquid waste will be stored in a separate tank and taken to the Hampton Roads Sanitation District's Nansemond Treatment Plant in Suffolk.
Sitting 200 feet from shore, the building's first floor is 13.8 feet above sea level to accommodate sea level rise and coastal flooding.
"We'll use 20 percent of the energy of conventional building," Everett said. "We think it'll be the greenest building in Virginia."
CBF is the only independent 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated solely to restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers. To date, the organization has raised 70 percent of its $21 million capital campaign. The funds will be used to cover the project's design and construction costs in addition to the salaries, programs and endowments for the center.
A ribbon cutting ceremony is planned for Nov. 14.
