Non-Profits See Many Benefits to Building Green

1071 (nat sound)
A small group of high school students are skateboarding in a parking lot outside the former Exeter Junior High School.
A sea of asphalt surrounds the school, built in 1967.
The boxy concrete, cinder block, and brick veneer building is classic 60’s modernism.
It stands in stark contrast to its surrounding wetlands.
Squamscott Community Commons Executive Director Carol Aten says the building will soon be torn down, creating an ideal location for an environmentally friendly community center.
“For a location that’s on wetlands, on the Little River which is a freshwater tributary of the Exeter River, which is part of our watershed we’re very mindful of how we’re designing this facility to be sensitive to the property it sits on.”
The Squamscott Community Commons will house a YMCA, complete with aquatic center, and seven other non-profit organizations.
The non-profits simply couldn’t afford the cost of a new building on their own – Aten says a community center will allow them to streamline operating costs.
1083 the nice thing about sharing and being under one roof for all these agencies – they don’t have to have all their own meeting space, they don’t have to have their own board room or kitchen facilities, they’re able to share a lot of their components.

Principal architect Joel Bargmann with Bargmann, Hendrie, Plus Archetype says the project will aim to achieve at least a silver LEED certification, that’s one of the top design standards set by the US Green Building Council.
The pool will recycle heat for other areas of the building, the roof will capture rainwater to use to flush toilets, and automatic sensors will control air quality.
4:37 if you can design the building to recognize how many people are in the building at one time, your rooms can behave a little bit more organically so you can bring fresh air and heat or cooling in depending on the number of people, it’s a lot more efficient than always bringing in a constant volume of air that’s dependent on the maximum load.

With 80-thousand square feet of space on ten acres, the community center could cost 20-million dollars.
But by building with these green features, Bargmann says in the long run they’ll be savings for the nonprofits.
9:36 the rule of thumb is that a green building is about ten percent more expensive than a conventional building, where we have used these features – some of them have been in community centers in New England we get about a four to five year payback on the systems

That’s money that nonprofits can then use for programs.
The non-profit world is heavily-promoting green building – and not just for the cost savings.
China Brotsky is Executive Director for the NonProfit Centers Network.
“It’s an advantage not just to the tenants but to anyone who comes into a building if you’re operating it without toxic chemicals, and I think it gives the community and the people in the building a sense of pride to have a building that meets such urgent community needs but it as a reduced cost to the environment.”

Green buildings typically don’t use toxic materials – something especially important for Squamscott Community Commons, which will have a daycare center and a health center.
Architect Joel Bargmann says the community center will also have 25-percent less carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions than a typical building of similar size.
If all goes as planned, Squamscott Community Commons will open by mid-2009.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.