Statesman Journal reports on Pringle Creek Conservatory

The recent article, "Pringle Creek greenhouses get a facelift: Historical structures produce food and unite community, is all about Pringle Creek's two 1930s-era greenhouses being back in operation. The Statesman Journal reporter, Rachel Bucci, came out and talked with James Santana. He is quoted throughout the article.

One of the highlights of the article: an announcement that the Painters Hall Café is open! "For now Painters Hall Café, open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Friday, offers brewed and French press coffee (a Craigslist procured espresso maker is getting a tune-up), tea and Wild Pear box lunches if you call ahead. There is also wi-fi and an incomparable setting — a sunny deck, the soft rustling of trees along Pringle Creek, and a great view of the newly restored greenhouses."

Below are a few paragraphs about the partnerships Pringle Creek has with some local nonprofits:

At Pringle Creek's first community garden, up and running since 2005, community members and neighbors tend the plots, with extra produce donated to Marion Polk Food Share.

The now fully functioning greenhouses have enabled Pringle Creek to have an even larger impact with the Food Share. This year they used to start flats and flats of vegetables that have since been distributed and planted at MPFS sites across the region.

Another partnership, between Pringle Creek and Shangri-La's LEAP program (Life Enrichment and Activities Program), is giving developmentally disabled adult volunteers an opportunity to grow flower baskets. Three days a week the volunteers tend the baskets of fuchsia and purple hued petunias, while enjoying the therapeutic benefits of gardening.

"They've really enjoyed going down and having time to work with the plants," says project coordinator and Shangri-La's business developer Sandi Bjorkman. "Right from the get-go, they planted seeds, have been watching them grow and nurturing them. It's been quite a process and they are really enjoying it."

Santana says that some of the flower baskets will be displayed around the Pringle Creek community, while others may be sold to the public with proceeds benefiting Shangri-La.

"James Santana stands at a restored
greenhouse at the former Fairview Training Center property in South Salem."

Pringle Creek repeats in Natural Home top ten

Pringle Creek Community is on Natural Home magazine's list, America’s Top 10 Best Green-Built Neighborhoods.The magazine states that "our favorite planned communities strive for responsible construction and promote sustainable living.”

Two and half years ago Natural Home published a similar listing, their top 10 “green housing projects,” and Pringle Creek was also on that list.

Two entries on the new list that weren't on the previous list are in Oregon:
Mosier Creek is in the small town of Mosier, seven miles west of Hood River. The other is Northwest Crossing in Bend.

Pringle Creek in Forests for Oregon magazine

The Oregon Department of Forestry has written about Pringle Creek Community in their quarterly magazine, Forests for Oregon. The article, "An innovative approach to trees, landscaping, homebuilding," by Cynthia Orlando, is on pages 6-7 of the online 12-page pdf.

The pervious asphalt is an important feature – it allows 90 percent of rainwater to infiltrate on-site to the aquifer, thereby protecting local rivers and streams. Pervious asphalt notwithstanding, “our trees are our most effective stormwater management tool,” says James Santana, Director of Community Development at Pringle Creek.

The site’s commitment to mature tree retention – an astounding 80 percent of the site’s trees were preserved during development – is another important feature. “Retaining existing trees on a development site is often more valuable than planting new trees,” says ODF’s Urban and Community Program Director, Paul Ries. “Mature trees deliver and instant sense of place – as well as a variety of environmental, economic, and social benefits that small trees take many years to provide,” he adds.

Painter's Hall going for LEED platinum

The Statesman Journal had a fine article the other day (and then reprinted in a special "South Salem" section) about Pringle Creek's remodeled Painter's Hall: Salem site closes in on platinum designation.

Its walls are so thick, its ceiling so insulated and its heating so efficient that nary a wisp of energy will leave the building.

The so-called Painter's Hall is so "green" that it is on track to get the highest green-building rating by the U.S. Green Building Council: platinum.

It will be the first platinum commercial building in Salem, one of 11 in Oregon and one of 52 along the West Coast.

Click here to see a Statesman Journal photo gallery of green buildings in the Salem area. Pringle Creek Community is featured in photo #14 (Wilsons' house), #22 through #28 (Painter's Hall), and #39 and #40 (the new houses).

Statesman Journal article on Green and Solar Tour

The article below was in the Statesman Journal on September 30 in anticipation of the Green and Solar Tour that took place last weekend.

Salem tour puts spotlight on eight sustainable homes

Event promotes solar energy and green living

By Stefanie Knowlton

Eight of Salem's most environmentally friendly homes will be open to the public Saturday for the Salem Green + Solar Home Tour.

The tour, now in its third year, shows off Salem's quiet green-building revolution, which includes everything from a 1946 farmhouse with solar panels to a home under construction that's set to be one of the most energy efficient in the country.

Sustainable homes make sense, especially in a struggling economy, said James Santana with Pringle Creek Community, which helped organize the tour.

"The basic tenants of sustainability, resource conservation, smart design, massive reductions in energy use, buying local products, could not be any more relevant than here and now."

The tour is one of 14 throughout the state this fall designed to promote solar energy and green living. They're a part of the National Solar Tour day Saturday. The nonprofit Solar Oregon touts Oregon's tours as the biggest events of their kind in the nation.

Salem resident Sally White is one of the stops on Salem's tour. White installed solar panels on her 900-square-foot farmhouse. She and her husband paid about $28,000 for the panels and a solar hot water heater, but they got nearly half that back in tax incentives this year and the rest will take care of itself in energy savings, Sally White said.

Their electric bills average about $5 in the summer and peak at $23 in January.

Other stops on the tour include Salem's first green roof, which uses living plants to clean runoff and cool the building, and one of the West Coast's first Passive House homes, which uses building techniques to create a nearly air-tight envelope for minimum heat loss. The result is so efficient that residents' body heat contribute a sizeable amount of the home's warmth.

Owners Sarah Evans and Stuart Rue are eager to share their home even if it's still six months away from completion.

Visitors will be able to see the bones of the house, Santana said, which is one of the most important aspects. That's where you can see the double frame that's key to its energy efficiency.

"It gives us the chance to understand how it works and gain an appreciation for why its design is so much smarter," Santana said.

sknowlto@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6735

Sally White's house on Wallace Road NW is one of eight featured in the third annual Salem Green + Solar Home Tour. Her rainwater-collecting tank gathered 400 gallons during Tuesday's rains alone.

Pringle Creek featured in Terrain.org

Pringle Creek is featured in a fascinating web magazine: "Terrain.org. A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments is a twice yearly online journal searching for that interface--the integration--among the built and natural environments, that might be called the soul of place." The article is One Green Thing Leads to Another: Sustainability at the Pringle Creek Community.

Pringle Creek Community’s portion of the old institution had been used for growing food in the gardens and in the two historic Lord and Burnham glass greenhouses, each more than 2,500 square feet in size, and contained the institution’s central steam-heat plant and a number of construction support facilities.

When SDI [Sustainable Development Inc., owner/developer of Pringle Creek Community] and the design team began their discussions about the project they realized it would be focused on the very things—food, energy, and construction—that were the legacy of the property. The new neighborhood would have extensive community gardens and the greenhouses would be restored to active use. The greenhouses and many of the homes would have geothermal heating and cooling, making use of an existing high-capacity well. Many of the homes and buildings would use solar energy for hot water and electricity. Construction on the project would showcase craftsmanship, durability, and state-of-the-art green materials and technology.

Friends of ours

An article about Pringle Creek Community is in the Fall 2008 issue of Landmark magazine. The article is on pages 16 and 17. Landmark is the quarterly publication of 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Tom McCall and the organization he co-founded, 1000 Friends of Oregon, are pillars of environmental stewardship and smart planning in Oregon. Consider attending this upcoming event: Executive Director Bob Stacey reviews priorities for coming legislative session, January 7, 11:30 a.m. at Mission Mill.

Gov. Tom McCall (left) and Secretary of State Clay Myers in a photo related to Oregon's Bottle Bill circa 1971 [before the era of political stagecraft, apparently].

Statesman Journal's green business section

The Salem Statesman Journal devoted their recent "Inside Business" section to articles about greening businesses. Prominent was this piece written by Pringle Creek Masterplan Coordinator Tony Nielsen. In the article Tony praised a number of the local businesses that have been part of the project. Tony mentioned DeSantis Landscaping ("a leader in green landscapes and maintenance services"), Evolution Paving Resources ("a leader in pervious concrete applications"), O'Neil Pine Co. and Withers Lumber ("partnering to ensure a steady flow of Forest Stewardship Council-certified lumber"), North Santiam Paving (which "demonstrated ingenuity when it came up with the idea of reusing some concrete beams to build a small bridge over the creek"), and builders Blake and Larry Bilyeu and Spectra Construction (who "have brought knowledge and passion for green building techniques to the homes at Pringle Creek").

Web article praises community-building at Pringle Creek

A new web article on the Worldchanging site, "Outside Ideas: Sustainable Community at Pringle Creek" is very complimentary:

But these building components do not themselves alone create communities that are exciting, inclusive and rooted places for people to live. In my own experience as a professional planner, I have been involved with a number of green building projects and innovative neighborhood developments, but when it comes to successfully creating a sustainable community, only one stands above the rest.

The Pringle Creek sustainable development in Salem, Ore. offers much more than your conventional residential subdivision; it offers individuals the chance to be part of a community.

The author of the article, Ashley Deforest, used to work as a planner for the City of Salem. She is now up in Seattle and writes a blog called Urban Musings. Thanks, Ashley.

Pringle Creek featured in Environmental Design + Construction magazine

Here is the latest magazine article about Pringle Creek Community.
It is in a special issue of Environmental Design + Construction magazine, their annual "LEED" issue. The article focuses on Pringle Creek's LEED Platinum (and award-winning) Cottage Home.

SDI went all out for the first house completed at the development, known as the Learning Home. It was the first house in the Pacific Northwest to earn LEED Platinum certification and just the sixth in the country. It earned 103 points, which was, as of June 2007, a record. The house also won a silver EnergyValue Housing Award in the Custom home category at the February 2008 ceremony in Orlando.

The Learning Home, a “cottage style” house (other styles in the development include row homes, live/work studio lofts, single family homes, attached houses and “tall” houses), is currently being monitored for performance by the Oregon Department of Energy.

The article is also available online in “magazine format.” Click here and see that the front cover is the elegant photo below of the Cottage House, taken by professional photographer Visko Hatfield. The article is pages 108 to 116 (in the "LEED Guide" part of the magazine). To get there quick, put your cursor in the page number at the top (0/148) and type in “108” and you’ll go right to it.

Think tank says Pringle Creek "may be" greenest

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a large and influential progressive think tank headed by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta. CAP has a new weekly website series to recognize “those who are taking action to address climate change and help create a low-carbon economy.” The series is called “It’s Easy Being Green” and last week’s article is titled “Is Pringle Creek the Greenest Neighborhood?”

Pringle Creek Community in Salem, Oregon, named the 2007 Green Land Development of the Year by the National Association of Home Builders, may be the greenest neighborhood in the country. And what’s more, Don Myers, president of the community’s developer, says, “It’s clean, it’s nice, it’s elegant, it’s all the things that I think are what a lot of people in residential architecture are comfortable with.”

Sure, it would have been nice if CAP would have said "yes, Pringle Creek is the greenest." But it’s quite exciting to get national exposure as the neighborhood that “may be” the greenest.

On the roads again

Pringle Creek’s porous asphalt roads are all over the media these days--and for good reason. Take a look at this dramatic photograph showing the Pringle Creek entrance, where the beautiful porous pavement meets the flooded impervious city street.

Click here to see more such photos (thanks, santiago). Clearly, "pervious" is better. No wonder these streets are getting so much media coverage. The latest is Porous Streets Work--Even in Rainy Oregon on the worldchanging website. Columnist Erica Barnett expresses disappointment that supposedly "green" Seattle recently repaved a parking lot near Lake Washington with impervious asphalt:

What reminded me of that incident was a story in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal about a system of porous streets in that city's Pringle Creek Community, a housing development that has gotten national praise (even landing on Natural Home's list of the top 10 "green" housing developments in the US) for its green building and sustainable-design practices. Community members had worried that the system would not be able to stand up to Oregon's wet winters; so far, with February getting underway, residents have been hard-pressed to so much as find a puddle.

The two hyperlinks are in the original. The referenced Statesman Journal article is new, so take a look at that. And here is yet another, the website of Construction Equipment Guide. It is featuring Willamette Valley Tabbed for Porous Asphalt Streets, a very technically informative piece. Here's a sample:

The contractor washed and vacuumed the fines out of the pavement before laying the final lift of 2-in. (5 cm) pervious wearing course with a 3/8-in. (0.95 cm) top-size aggregate. The wearing course utilized a polymer modified PG 70-22 grade binder to reduce drain down and enhance long-term durability. The surface course was laid from May 25 to June 2. River Bend Sand and Gravel produced the porous asphalt mix.

“This was a unique and challenging project,” said Ron Boschler, president of North Santiam Paving. “We had done a lot of projects using open-graded design, but nothing where the water is supposed to drain through the entire street, like this porous pavement. The pavement held up well under the construction traffic. The paving part of the job was very similar to an ordinary paving job.”

Portland's new "guide for creating spaces to love"

The magnificent City of Portland. It prospers--and much of its growth is “smart.” People continue to move closer to the vibrant built-up downtown. Portland is known far and wide for good planning, green planning. Of course Portland would get a new magazine about:

. . . designing the places where we live, work, play and socialize. It’s a guide for creating spaces to love, from gardens, kitchens and living rooms, to workplaces and neighborhoods, to the city and the region as a whole. It’s about the opportunities and trade-offs in balancing sustainability, elegance and value, both when money is no object and also when it is, by necessity or by choice.

The premiere issue of Portland Spaces hit the newsstands a couple weeks ago. The feature item is a three-part Houses That Make History.

• Part one, “three great expressions of today’s home design.”
• Part two, a “timeline of the 164-year history of the single-family home in Portland” on their website here.
• Part three, “building the future.” Portland Spaces found the future in Salem, at Pringle Creek Community:

. . . So the Wilsons began researching places where they could settle into their next phase of life. The Pearl District? South Waterfront? Bend? Nothing seemed to fit, until friends told them about one of the greenest new communities being built in the United States: Pringle Creek. And it happened to be only four miles from their home.

It may be surprising that the bar for American sustainability is being hoisted so high in a city the size of Salem, never mind the exact location: the former Fairview Training Center for the developmentally disabled. After the center was decommissioned in 2000, its 275-acre campus became an eco-cause célèbre for the Salem community. The result: one of the most environmentally advanced master plans ever adopted by a city. Pringle Creek will carry out 32 acres of that vision.

. . .

Call it the party at Pringle Creek: A sense of belonging has taken root even before the homes arrived. “I don’t think community is a stagnant thing,” Sue says. “We’ll learn from every participant and every project.”

We at this blog page have introduced the Wilsons, here.
But you would learn more if you could read the whole article, which isn't available on the internet. So consider subscribing to this cool new magazine. Meanwhile, take a look at the two Portland Spaces blogs, and in particular this blog item about buildings planned for Portland.

Photo above: Spaces editor-in-chief, Randy Gragg, unveils the magazine’s premiere cover.

American Institute of Architects looks at Pringle Creek

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is an organization of "over 80,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners." They call themselves the voice of the architecture profession. AIA wanted to know how the sustainable parts of Pringle Creek (i.e. the LEED-Platinum Cottage) fit into the whole sustainable project. They spoke with Pringle Creek masterplanner James Meyer and here is their web article.

Opsis is designing several other housing models (row houses, loft apartments, single-family homes, etc.), some as traditional as the cottage house, and others featuring more contemporary flat roofs and vertical profiles. They are currently building their first three-story “Tall House,” and other designs are in various stages of construction design and permitting.

These designs will be suggested templates for builders. Other architects are allowed to create new designs pending approval of the Pringle Creek Design Review Committee. However, the development’s commitment to sustainability is contractually mandated: All new buildings must be LEED certified. Meyer says the Design Review Committee’s charter is less aesthetically fixated and more sustainably oriented than a typical subdivision’s equivalent. “We’re not stylistically driving it, but we’re driving it on a set of principles,” he says.

Key to the development’s potential attractiveness, Meyer says, is allowing the community to grow and develop organically, without restrictive and detailed building regulations, so “that you feel there is a history of [the place], that it wasn’t just sort of a piece of machinery that was crafted the week before,” even though his initial design impulse might be to rigorously define this very machine.

One of the ten best in the country, says Natural Home Magazine

Pringle Creek Community is on Natural Home Magazine’s list of the top ten green housing developments. It’s a ten-way tie; the developments are listed alphabetically by city. In addition to recognizing the potential for carbon-neutral living and net-zero energy homes at Pringle Creek (all Pringle Creek homes are expected to achieve LEED-Silver, Gold or Platinum), the magazine takes note of these great features:

• Geothermal heating in 70 homes, commercial and mixed-use buildings
• Forest Stewardship Council-certified lumber
• Green restoration of historic buildings and greenhouses
• Porous asphalt street system for managing rainwater
• Onsite biodiesel co-op; community flex car (car-sharing)
• Creek and wetlands restoration; tree preservation plan
• Community garden and orchards

Three other developments from the Pacific Northwest made the list: Issaquah Highlands and High Point from the Seattle area, and Helensview from the Portland area.

Thank you Statesman Journal for reporting on Pringle Creek making this list.

"Green" asphalt

Pringle Creek and its amazing porous asphalt are the cover story of the Aphalt Pavement Association of Oregon’s magazine. Online the issue is a large (3MB) pdf: Forget Yellow Brick Roads, Think Green Asphalt Streets! Good title.

Pringle Creek developers are not among the skeptics. The community is the first of significant size to use 100% permeable pavement in its streets. And with 9,000 linear feet of streets and alleyways, it is believed to be the largest residential application of porous asphalt in the country.
“Sustainability is the real motivator for us,” said Don Myers, Pringle Creek project manager and president of Sustainable Development, Inc. in Salem. “People are drawn to it, and it supports our company’s philosophy of environmental stewardship,” he added.

The article has a full technical explanation of how the roads were built, how the pavement works. I prefer to think it’s magic. Watch our little 10-second video below and tell me it’s not magical.

Big small article on the cottage

We have this link up on the Pringle Creek home page also: it’s a large pdf file of an annual publication, Green + Solar Building Oregon (subtitled “A Comprehensive Guide to Green and Solar Building”).

The pdf has two articles in it.
The first is about the history of the Green and Solar tours, one of which starts at Pringle Creek on Oct. 6 at 11 a.m. (and ends with a reception back at Pringle Creek). The other article is “Pringle Creek Cottage: A Very Big Small House.” It’s written by Christopher Dymond of the Oregon Dept. of Energy. Mr. Dymond takes a close look at the systems, the specifications, the statistics. It's technical in places, but in a good way. Here are a couple of the less-technical paragraphs:

Designed by Opsis Architecture and built by Bilyeu Homes, the Pringle Creek Cottage is on of few houses to date that is built efficient enough to qualify the builder for a $2,000 federal tax credit for energy-efficient new homes. In addition, the home will be the first to qualify the builder for a $3,000 state of Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit for efficiency and up to $9,000 for the renewable energy features.

. . .

Imagine living in a home like this with an energy footprint 35 percent that of a typical, comparably-sized home. Energy costs would have to more than triple before you would pay as much as someone living in an average two bedroom new home. It is worth remembering that when we measure the environmental impact of a home, the single largest impact over the life of the home is its energy use.

SEDCOR's Enterprise Magazine

What used to be the Salem Economic Development Corporation is now the Strategic Economic Development Corporation, or SEDCOR. This creative organization provides a wonderful bi-monthly magazine, Enterprise, which documents what is happening in the mid-Willamette Valley business world. The current issue is dedicated to covering the move of local business and industry to sustainable practices. Click here to see page 16, on Pringle Creek--written by our masterplan coordinator, Tony Nielsen. Below are a couple paragraphs that name some of the other businesses involved.

Pringle Creek Community, and the other local businesses that are working on the project, are connecting Salem to Oregon’s green reputation. North Santiam Paving Company is using biodiesel and porous asphalt and concrete. DeSantis Landscapes is using all-organic methods on the property. O’Neil Pine Company and Withers Lumber Company are providing the sustainably harvested lumber (FSC-certified)—only FSC lumber will be used at the development. Prudential Real Estate has a core sales team that are among Oregon’s first certified Eco-brokers.

Other local businesses and individuals involved with the project include Kris Gorsuch of Saalfeld Griggs, Rick Yurk of BAM Agency, Scott Erickson of Evolution Paving Resources, Elaine Gesik of 1st Premier Properties, and Ron Summers of Summer Solar Systems. Four mid-valley builders--Bilyeu Homes, Spectra Construction, The Glen Rea Company, and Shipman Quality Construction--are building seven different housing types that will help attract new buyers and businesses to Salem.

You can see the entire issue of the magazine. It’s 48 pages, so it’s a large pdf file. Page 27 has a small item about a SEDCOR visit to Pringle Creek and includes a photo of Don Myers presenting information about the project to the gathering.

Land Development article

Here we go again--Pringle Creek is spotlighted in another prestigious trade magazine for developers. The article is Pringle Creek Leading the Wave in Land Development magazine, which is put out by the National Association of Home Builders. That is the same enormous and influential organization that gave Pringle Creek the Green Development of the Year award back in March. The article is a must-read; a page-turner; and suitable for framing. Here's an excerpt:

The planning team saved 85 percent of existing trees and used the remaining 15 percent by milling the logs on-site for gazebos, play structures and the bar in the neighborhood restaurant. Planners provided for deconstructing of old metal buildings to move them to new locations for a second life. They sited each lot with prevailing breezes and natural light as key criteria. An existing high-volume well allowed the planning team to include geo-thermal heating and cooling capacity for half the homes and the commercial Village Center.

Pringle Creek in ULI’s magazine

This article, Oregon Green, in the beautiful Urban Land magazine, is very exciting for us. Urban Land Institute is the world's leading organization of development professionals. These folks get it--they're all about developing great urban environments, smart growth, compact and sustainable development.

Note that the author of the article, Portland native Michael Mehaffy, was, until recently, Director of Education for the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment.
That is Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, who is working hard to lead the UK toward new levels of environmental stewardship.

Oregon Green: A new community in Salem, Oregon, is raising the bar for sustainable development.

Oregon is well known for its innovations in urban development and environmental stewardship, but a new, 32-acre (13-ha) community being built in the capital city of Salem may set a benchmark for the trend in sustainable community development. The Pringle Creek Community has high aspirations: its development team aims to provide a showcase for integrated, market-driven sustainable development. More than that, the community is an early pioneer in the trend to combine green building standards with the environmental and social achievements of new urbanist community design.