North Charleston storefront getting ‘green’ makeover

North Charleston’s Sustainability Institute, which promotes ecological awareness, human wellness, durability and economical efficiency in the design and construction of buildings, has teamed with local architecture firm LS3P to convert 1077 East Montague Ave., home of the Olde North Charleston Meeting Place, to a community center providing sustainability education for residents, businesses, schools and organizations, and municipal agencies.

“Sustainable,” an environmentalist word interchangeable with “green,” refers to healthier, more livable communities created through cost-effective, ecologically friendly buildings. Advocates claim sustainability enhances and improves a community’s quality of life by strengthening that community’s economic, social and environmental well-being. It’s the foundation of North Charleston’s much talked about Noisette project, billed as the largest urban redevelopment initiative in the nation’s history and the brainchild of Noisette Co. President and CEO John Knott Jr., who with Noisette Vice President Jim Augustin co-founded the Sustainability Institute.

The Olde North Charleston Meeting Place, which lies within the Noisette development, is a vacant storefront that the Sustainability Institute is using as an example of how commercial real estate space can be made sustainable. Heather Garrison, the institute’s executive director, believes her not-for-profit organization has a “tremendous” opportunity to make the storefront a commercial space sustainability model for the nation.

To promote that opportunity, the institute and LS3P recently held a daylong sustainability seminar attended by about 20 planners, architects and building product manufacturers from across the country. Sustainable buildings require long-lasting, energy-efficient, non-toxic materials—materials Knott claims often have a difficult time finding their way to the market place. But Knott says the Sustainability Institute intends to bring manufacturers of such products in direct contact with the market.

The process of North Charleston’s Meeting Place makeover and other sustainability projects begins with the setting of functional, aesthetic, cost and green goals. Then comes performance analysis, peer review from building professionals, commissioning (which ensures that the design of the building accomplishes what the planners said it would) and finally championing from a green advocate who has the authority to influence and direct the project team. It’s a process in which team members, each with specific areas of expertise, work together rather than in separate departments.

In case some of the seminar attendees felt uncertain about sustainability, Knott assured them that the green concept is well grounded. “This is not an experiment. This is a beta site. Beta is applied research that has already been tested and is then put out on the market to see how it works and then tweaked some more.” He cited the upscale sustainable community Dewees he developed, the sustainable monastery Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner and the green construction undertaken by the University of Texas at Houston.

Laura Lesniewski of Kansas City, Mo.-based architecture firm BNIM discussed her firm’s sustainability projects during the seminar and further explained the importance of place in green design. After all, why design a building in Philadelphia the same as a building in Phoenix?

“Sustainable design is an approach to design,” Lesniewski emphasizes. “It returns to design based on climate, culture and land.”