Viva San Antonio!

SAN ANTONIO: PEARL BREWERY & RIVERWALK REDVELOPMENT

I made it to San Antonio and the first site visit I attended with the class was to the Pearl Brewery and Riverwalk Redevelopment. The brewery, which is located at the northermost navigable point of the San Antonio river, brewed beer for over a century at the time of its shut down in 2001. The entire brewery campus has been redeveloped or is in the process of redeveopment. The nwe uses really capture the theme of work-live-play with the presence of residential, office, retail and eductation facilites all on site. 

Throughout the entire redevelopment there is a serious focus on sustainability. The most obvious and probably most important aspect of sustainability being used is the reuse of all of the old brewery buildings. This saves a massive amount of effort and material that would be required to tear down these buildings and construct new buildings in their place. It also gives a second life to properties that would most likely go unused and simply deteriorate with time. The development also featured many other sustainable / green features including the states largest solar panel installation, drought resistant xeriscaping, high-performance building materials, rainwater collection systems, some buildings using windtricity electrical supply and recycling centers. The project developers really believed in creating a green and sustainable development and it shows through the widespread inclusion of these features.

The Pearl brewery project is a good example of how an adaptive reuse project can be done with incorporation of sustainable and green components. It also serves as a great example of sustainable and green development being acheived on a large campus size project. I believe this type of project is very important because it shows the development world that old industrial / office complexes, which our country has an abundance of, can be repurposed in both a cool and environmentally friendly way. Hopefully other developers will take notice and start not only looking at older campuses for redevelopment but also looking at them for sustainable and green redevelopment.

Along with touring the Pearl brewery project we also took a walk down the newly developed section of the San Antonio Riverwalk which starts at the Pearl site and works it way in to the downtown area. The walking path was constructed very well and includes quite a few neat nature preservation sections and artwork features. The trail has also sparked some development with one apartment building underway and more planned for the future.  

This riverwalk redevelopment is important from a sustainability perspective for a couple reasons. The first reason is that it took a previously rundown and unused section of one of San Antonio's natural treasures and turned it in to a very enjoyable destination without impacting the natural area in a negative way. The other reason is that it created a pedestrian connection between the Pearl site and downtown San Antonio, where many of the city's residents work. I don't know that it is currently being heavily utilized as a form of transportation to work but with the rise of the Pearl site and the development of more residences along the new section of the river there is no doubt that the use will rise.

Here are some more pictures of the Pearl site and riverwalk:

SAN ANTONIO AIA

While at the Pearl brewery we also stopped in at the San Antonio AIA office, which is located on site and was one of the first offices to take occupancy in the redevelopment. We were only able to speak with an adminstrator during our visit so we did not get a large amount of info but we did learn that the office space was fitted out in a very energy efficient manner and that San Antonio architects are very focues on green building. This is good to hear because, as I stated in a previous post, I beleive that architects provide some of the major push behind the green building movement and without their green design we will not be producing green buildings.

Sustainable Perspectives Group

Our next site visit was at the office of Sustainable Perspectives Group. This company provides LEED and green building consulting servies for owners, architects and contractors in the San Antonio area. I am fairly familiar with this type of work since I am a LEED Green Associate and use companies similiar to this one at my job so I didn't take very much away from the visit. However, I was encouraged to hear that SPG has been very busy lately and is seeing an increase in the number of green projects.

Texas Toyota Plant



Our next stop was at the Toyota manufacturing plant. This plant has only been open for a short period of time and Toyota uses it to manufacture a couple of their truck lines there. We were supposed to go on a tour of the manufacturing facility but because of numbers we were unable to participate in the tour. We did however learn about some of the sutainable or environmentally friendly practices that Toyota uses at this plant. One of the major sustainable features is that a majority of the truck parts manufacturers are located on the same campus. This is the only plant Toyota has set up like this in the world and it eliminates the need for parts to be shipped by vehicle to the manufacturing site which in turn cuts down the vehicle pollution. The site is also a "zero landfill" site which means that everything is either recycled or reused. This is obviously very environmentally friendly and quite impressive for a site of this size. It is good to see that large global corporations are actually practicing sustainability and not just using it as a marketing tool.

Here are a couple more pictures from the visit:

While my time in San Antonio was short, I can tell that this city is focused on becoming more green and sustainable. The people seem to care about their environment and are taking action to make their city a more green for the future. It time to head to Houston and I am excited to see how sustainable the energy capital of the country can be!