Photos by JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Each of the residential condos at the State & City Building in downtown Roanoke features 34 windows, which could have left residents with hot and cold areas. The remedy, a special sort of heat pump, is environmentally friendly.

Developer Rob Glenn will celebrate State & City Building's certification Monday. He lives on the top floor.

"Insulation on steroids" bundles the hot water heaters.

Water-saving toilets offer two flushing options -- one swirls a greater water volume than the other.

On the third floor, which houses offices, the hallway drinking fountain has no cooler. No one seems to notice.

But a national nonprofit, the U.S. Green Building Council, has noticed -- and been impressed by -- these and a host of other environmentally friendly features of the ambitiously renovated State & City Building in downtown Roanoke.

In November, the council blessed the building with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

Breakell General Contractors of Roanoke ran the renovation construction. Stan Breakell, president, said the LEED recognition is significant for the Roanoke Valley.

"I see it as a win for Roanoke, where the city's connection to the outdoors and our other quality-of-life characteristics are important to economic development," Breakell said. "LEED certification fits that perfectly."

State & City is the first and only (for now) LEED certified building in Roanoke, according to the USGBC. Aside from the Gatorade plant in Wytheville, it is also the first and only certified building in the region.

Charlottesville, the stomping grounds of sustainable development guru Bill McDonough, also has one LEED certified building.

A dozen other projects in the area have registered with the council to be considered for certification.

LEED standards emphasize water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Celebration

On Monday at 10 a.m., developer Rob Glenn, Breakell General and Spectrum Design, the condominium conversion project's architectural and engineering firm, as well as many others involved in the renovation, will celebrate the certification.

Renovations began in June 2005, two months after the building was purchased for $1.3 million by Glenn, doing business as 102 West Campbell LLC.

More than $5 million in renovations later, the building was transformed from a commercial structure to one with five residential condos, six office condos and street-level retail space for longtime occupant Frank L. Moose Jewelers. A certificate of occupancy was issued in October 2006.

The building's first three floors were built in 1905 -- in the "classic commercial" style -- to house the State and City Bank. The other five floors, considered to be Art Deco, were added in the late 1920s.

Now, all but one residential condo has sold. The average price for these full-floor, 4,000-square-foot spaces has been about $750,000. The unsold condo lists at $995,000.

Glenn lives with his wife, Sherry, on the top floor. He has become just one of several property owners now at State & City.

Glenn said Thursday that the decision to embrace green building standards during renovations was not influenced solely by a desire to do the right thing.

A happy marriage

"The marriage between what is practical and what is environmentally sound works best when the two are compatible in ways that make sense for the project," Glenn said.

For example, the decision to include energy-efficient components -- especially for heating, ventilation and air conditioning -- was driven, in part, by concerns about residents' comfort, he said.

At the State & City Building, each residential condo features a total of 34 windows that wrap around the building. Because renovation financing was aided by the use of historic tax credits, related standards did not allow alterations to the windows.

Thus, during different hours of the day, as the sun moved across the sky, condo residents could have faced having one side of their home insufferably hot and the other uncomfortably cold.

The practical remedy -- a "closed-loop water source heat pump" -- was also environmentally friendly.

Considered to be one of the most efficient HVAC systems available, the closed-loop system can recover rejected energy from spaces requiring cooling and channel it to spaces calling for heating. The results provide residents zones they can readily control as well as remarkable savings in energy costs, said Mark Garland, a civil engineer and green building coordinator for Spectrum Design of Roanoke.

Costs for going green

But doesn't going the sustainable, green route significantly increase costs?

"That's hard to quantify, really," Glenn said.

Early decisions to use high-quality materials, such as choosing cast iron instead of PVC for the main wastewater pipe, also provided environmental benefits, he said.

In addition, long-term energy-cost savings will be significant, Glenn said.

Spectrum Design, Breakell General, SmithLewis Architecture of Salem, Hayes Seay Mattern & Mattern and other firms in the region have embraced sustainable design principles for some time.

SmithLewis architect Gregg Lewis, a consistent public advocate for green design, said he is happy about the State & City Building's certification.

"I'm thrilled for Rob Glenn, the folks at Spectrum and Breakell," Lewis said.

He said this week that his firm will submit in coming days final paperwork for LEED certification for the Claude Moore Education Complex in Northwest Roanoke.

Lewis believes the project could land USGBC's gold certification, its second-highest ranking. The council designates four levels -- certified, silver, gold and platinum.

The State & City Building passed muster at the certified level.

Getting on board

Glenn said Monday morning's celebration will honor contractors, subcontractors and their employees. He said collaboration among the trades, coordinated by Breakell, was remarkable.

"The subcontractors had to be on board with this approach too," he said.

When Spectrum makes a project proposal to a prospective client, the company routinely pitches seeking LEED certification, Garland said.

"It seems like more and more owners are jumping on the bandwagon," he said.

But Stan Breakell is no green scene rookie, Glenn said.

"I've known Stan for 30 years, and he has been on the green bandwagon for years," Glenn said. "I don't know of anyone in Roanoke who has been committed to this longer than Stan."

Considering escalating energy costs, increasing evidence of human contribution to climate change, ongoing worries about air and water pollution and unhealthy buildings, Breakell said change in the construction industry is both inevitable and necessary for financial survival.

"In the world of business, in the world of construction, it's change or die," he said.