Entering the neatly inscribed glass front door on the handsome brick commercial building at 111 East Hargett St. in Raleigh’s bustling historic Downtown is a little like wandering down the rabbit hole to Alice’s Wonderland. A narrow corridor flanked by a mellow old brick wall leads to the building’s elevator, large floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors at the corridor’s end beckoning toward pleasant outdoor courtyard spaces, as well as entrances to adjoining buildings. The elevator opens onto the third floor reception area of the world headquarters of the Cherokee Investment Partners, LLC, an international investment firm created to address “brownfield” redevelopment, the regeneration of abandoned or underutilized largely industrial sites complicated by environmental pollutants. Today, after nearly two decades, Cherokee has metamorphosed into a multi-faceted corporation that works to implement sustainable solutions to create long-term value for investors, partnering firms, employees and the national and international communities.
“The success we’ve enjoyed since establishing Cherokee,” says Tom Darden, the firm’s chief executive officer, “is due in large part to making sure that the brownfield site is not only cleaned up and environmentally safe, but that what is built on the site is sustainable — and part of an integrated redevelopment plan for the local community. It is a process based on constant communication with stakeholders and adherence to responsible land use and development practices.”
Darden notes that Cherokee has dealt with more than 500 sites to date, each project starting with the question, “What kind of world are we building for the next generation?”
That question led to the creation of the Cherokee Sustainability Advisory Council, comprising leaders in urban planning, green building, energy innovation and sustainable community design. It also led Cherokee to use the doctrines of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) organization to approach the renovation of the former Heilig-Levine Building at the corner of Hargett and Wilmington Streets for the corporation’s headquarters.
“The LEED Green Building Rating System is a nationally recognized benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings,” says Darden.
The criteria are the guiding principles of the US Green Building Council (USGBC), a nonprofit organization committed to expanding sustainable building practices. It was developed by members of the 12,000 organizations across the building industry that are working to promote structures that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. (Currently both Carrboro and Chapel Hill are among North Carolina communities that have adopted LEED standards for publicly owned and funded buildings.)
Perfect Partnership
It was a perfect partnership. Cherokee was looking for space for its burgeoning operations, and Greg Hatem of Empire Properties and Empire Hardhat Construction — Downtown Raleigh’s ardent preservationist/developer — had recently completed the renovation of about 90 percent of a shell building encompassing eight different circa 1900 structures destined for Class A office space. Tise-Kiester Architects, PA, (TKA), architects for the project, managed to orchestrate the diverse grouping as an energy-efficient composite 48,000-square-foot building that could accommodate numerous 2000-square-foot office spaces, or one as large as 20,000 square feet. With its recent growth, Cherokee was able to occupy 22,000 square feet — all of the second and third floors.
Architect Don Tise recalls that a major task was to overcome the challenges that always beleaguer historic buildings, especially a grouping of buildings, including: horizontal circulation among the buildings; vertical circulation among the buildings, which entails accommodating different floor levels; and creating a non-intrusive plumbing core. TKA’s solution was to create a new building in the dead center of the complex to serve as the new core for circulation and plumbing.
“Interestingly enough,” reports Tise, “the new building fit exactly on the footprint of a building that had been demolished.”
The success of the new central core is immediately apparent stepping from the elevator into Cherokee’s light-filled reception area. Project architect Craig Carbrey explains that the main building’s original windows, on the south and west, were retained to pour light into the open floor plan, devised so that 90 percent of the office occupants have views of the outside. Glass walls reveal the handsome conference room with its paneled wall of Twice Used Wood taken from a home in Eastern North Carolina. Heart pine milled from beams and floor joists from old North Carolina industrial buildings appears in the reception desk and the half-walled, built-in work stations. The office is framed with wood from sustainably managed forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Darden is quick to point out that part of the charge of green building is not only to select energy efficient roof materials and systems, but also to reuse existing materials.
“We chose antique rugs purchased at Langston Auction Gallery, a regional auction house, and the flooring materials are selected to avoid off-gassing often associated with chemicals industrial carpeting,” he says.
Cherokee has prepared a comprehensive handout, The Guided Tour of Cherokee’s Green Office and Select Tips for Sustainable Living, distributed to visitors touring the office space. Each energy-saving element is denoted with a Green feature sign and includes energy-efficient lighting that uses photo sensors to dim the lights on sunny days; low-wattage, low-mercury fluorescent bulbs; and occupancy sensors that reduce lighting when offices are not in use. Darden estimates that lighting costs for offices, which make up 40 percent to 80 percent of the spaces’ energy bills, can be reduced by up to 60 percent with careful planning and fixture selection. The bonus is that the simple, clean-lined light fixtures blend well with the office’s pressed tin ceiling, a prize retained from an earlier incarnation. All office appliances are ENERGY STAR qualified products, including copiers, freezers, washers, heating and cooling equipment, doors, fans, lights, and computers. The kitchen features elegantly styled tables made from Alkemi, a recycled composite material containing a minimum of 60 percent post-industrial scrap aluminum. They were produced for Cherokee by Unique Concepts in Wendell, NC.
Tise commented that the Cherokee office was awarded the LEED Platinum Certification for Commercial Interiors.
“There are only a handful of historic renovation projects worldwide to achieve that status,” says Tise.
Cherokee’s new green office, a cooperative effort of Cherokee, TKA and Empire Hardhat Construction, was awarded Capital Area Preservation’s Anthemion Award. On the national level, the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association awarded the Heilig-Levine Complex the J. Timothy Anderson Award for the Best Sustainable/Green Historic Rehab, the only Anderson award given that year. After all, preservation is the ultimate recycling.
CHEROKEE’S GREENHOME PROJECT
By Diane Lea
A leader in the sustainable revitalization of environmentally distressed properties, Cherokee Investment Partners seeks to influence all aspects of development for sustainable communities. One of the company’s latest ventures is the National Homebuilder Mainstream GreenHome™ located in a suburban Raleigh neighborhood, making it the first of its kind to be built in a traditional subdivision.
Cherokee CEO Tom Darden points out that the GreenHome is a model for what Cherokee anticipates will be tens of thousands of homes built on “brownfield” sites. Cherokee partnered with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) to implement the Association’s Model Green Home Building Guidelines, calling for totally energy-efficient communities that include residences, commercial and retail establishments, office space, recreation, entertainment, and traditional services.
“The Mainstream GreenHome is a learning and teaching experience for all of us,” says Darden, “and we have more than 100 partners in this project.”
The home — a traditionally styled brick residence with third-floor dormers and a shed roof full-façade porch — features ElkCorp shingles that reflect sunlight and minimize heat gain; low-E Andersen windows; Centerpoint’s translucent roof, which contains an insulating gel used in NASA space suits; and General Shale bricks specifically selected to moderate day and night temperature fluctuations.
On the site of the GreenHome, existing trees were maintained wherever possible. The home is also sited to facilitate groundwater infiltration of stormwater runoff that is diverted to a series of interlocking Rain Tanks — crate-like underground storage tanks — that allow the water to percolate gradually into the ground. The GreenHome was designed in cooperation with TRC, builder of the innovative ground source heat pump system; Dawn Solar, developers of the solar thermal hot water technology; and Atlantis Energy, creators of the photovoltaic system that captures solar energy and converts it to electricity. The GreenHome is currently selling the excess energy it produces back to the energy company.