Case Studies: Sustainability, Energy Efficiency, and Resilience

Sophisticated, modern in style, and convenient are the descriptors used for the rehabilitated Atlantic Permanent Apartments and D’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia, illustrative words that equally applied when the former Atlantic Permanent Bank headquarters building was erected in 1954. Beyond preserving the sleek lines of Norfolk’s only international style building, designers from Work Program Architects introduced another timely title: floodproof.

The goals of historic rehabilitation, sustainability, and affordable housing came together in this rehabilitation project converting this abandoned historic high school in East Haven, Connecticut, into senior mixed-income housing.

The owners of the National Bohemian Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland, undertook a mixed use rehabilitation that converted the defunct brewery into office space, storage, and retail. The owners wanted to integrate green features into the newly rehabilitated buildings to make them more sustainable and to take advantage of local energy tax credits as well as the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives.

Historic preservation and sustainable design are two sides of the same coin. As demonstrated by the rehabilitation of the Mutual Building in Lansing, Michigan, popular green rating systems, such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) can easily be paired with the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credits.

The Ogilvie Hardware Company Building in Shreveport, Louisiana, was constructed in 1926 adjacent to a railroad spur for a wholesale hardware business. It is individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its local significance as part of Shreveport’s importance in regional commerce as a railroad hub in the late- nineteenth and early- twentieth century.

The Steuben Club Building in Chicago, Illinois is a terra cotta-clad skyscraper, designed in the Gothic Revival style with pointed arches, tracery, buttresses and finials. It has a twenty-seven story base, topped with a slender, eighteen-story polygonal tower terminating 463 feet in the air.

At the time of its construction in 1938, the Ottawa Street Power Plant was a state-of-the-art facility praised for its modern and innovative technology as well as for its architectural design. The towering height of the structure (176 feet) allowed for short smoke stacks to be installed behind the building’s parapet walls and hidden from view.

The opening of the new Exploratorium Museum on Pier 15 in the spring of 2013 marks another successful rehabilitation in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Historic District. Following other projects that have also taken advantage of the historic tax credits such as the Ferry Building and Piers 1, 1-1⁄2, 3, and 5, the new Exploratorium is unique in demonstrating good environmental stewardship.

Built in 1824 by noted architect George Oakley Totten, the Georgian Revival style McCormick-Goodhart Mansion in Langley Park, Maryland, stood vacant for many years before CASA de Maryland (CASA) acquired it for an administrative and social services center. CASA is the state’s largest non-profit organization providing social services for the Latino community.

Twenty-nine low-income housing townhouses rehabilitated using the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit in the Lower North Philadelphia Speculative Housing District. The projects, which have been certified LEED Platinum, reverse some renovation work done 20 years ago when they were converted to Section 8 housing.