The former Staatsburg elementary school from the outside still looks much like it did when it opened in 1930. But now retrofitted to serve as New York State Parks Taconic Region headquarters, it is among the most energy efficient and environmentally sustainable structures in the Hudson Valley, with an array of green building techniques from geothermal heating to pervious driveway and parking surfaces.
The 30,700-square-foot building is on 7.8 acres of fields and woodland on the boundaries of Norrie State Park and will be connected by a trail to the park facilities. It hosted a tour and forum Oct. 25 demonstrating and discussing environmentally sensible features that pay off economically and in ways beyond the bottom line.
The forum was connected with efforts by conference co-sponsor the Hudson Valley Regional Council to implement green infrastructure initiatives in rebuilding the water and sewer infrastructure of aging cities in the Hudson Valley and the Northeast.
The headquarters building embodies those initiatives from the ground up. “One of the greenest things you can do is reuse a building,” said Garrett Johnson, acting director of the Taconic park region and a landscape architect.
The grounds include newly planted shade trees, constructed wetlands and pervious paving for driveways and parking lots. Stormwater runs through the paving, to recharge groundwater while saving construction costs for piping, swales and retention ponds.
The building has geothermal heating and cooling and is insulated with foam and shredded cloth made from used jeans. There are energy efficient windows that are double paned but look like they fit in their historic setting. The plumbing is low water use and lighting is automated for efficiency.
Johnson said that while it costs more initially to install energy efficiency and natural water filtration systems to capture and reclaim runoff, savings accrue over the life of the building.
“Looking long term these things make financial sense,” he said. “We have a building that is going to be around a long time generating savings long term. But there is also something more that is often missing from this whole discussion of costs and that is the value of fresh water, for example. There is a value if you can live downstream and swim in the water and eat the fish and it”™s a significant value that can”™t be easily quantified.”
Simon Gruber, project manager for the Hudson Valley Regional Council green initiative, said that as contractors and regulators become more familiar with green infrastructure and more material supply companies provide them, prices will drop for using more natural mechanisms for capturing, purifying and reusing stormwater to recharge groundwater and use street trees and other plantings to cool an area and improve air quality.
“The take-home point is if we invest our money in that way, we solve the stormwater problem and we get all these other benefits,” Gruber said. “We get cleaner water, cleaner air that reduces asthma, we get shade that reduces the heat island effect and that in turn saves energy, all from the same investment dollars.”
Philadelphia has forwarded a green initiative plan to the federal government and city officials expressed benefits of the plan in what Gruber said was: “The triple bottom line ”“ the capitol costs, the environmental benefits and the social benefits.”
Philadelphia estimates a green initiative would conservatively yield almost $3 billion in benefits to Philadelphia over 40 years. “So that”™s the choice,” Gruber said.
