Commercial Green MLB

Green Pro Sports MLB

When I think of pro baseball games, my first thoughts usually revolve around juicy dogs, tall brewskies and looking out onto that overly watered open field. Low flow toilets, recycling initiatives and vegetative roofs don't usually pop into my head; but that's all changing. Apparently several big leaguers have adopted major changes if not total overhauls to their new and existing home fields. It's never too late to own up to corporate social responsibility!

Top of the eco watch list is Washington D.C., Nationals Park. The Nationals were the first pro sports baseball team to achieve LEED Silver. No easy task. Opening in the 08' season, this impressive new stadium features all sorts of Sustainy touches with everything from Green Gen Lighting to Eco Friendly cleaning products.

And the word is out. Since then, savvy team owners are trying to catch up. With the NY Mets new green stadium opening just this year and several parks like Fenway in Boston reaching for Solar power, you can be sure the future is now. Many professional franchises are looking to take the LEED.

Overall; 3 NFL stadiums including the SF 49er's and NY Giants, 1 NBA faciltity, 2 NHL rinks in the works, namely the Pittsburgh Penguins, and 4 MLB stadiums which include the Florida Marlins' complex and the Minnesota Twins, who are going for LEED gold in 2010! Now if we could just get the Yankees to quit clear-cutting....

via www.emagazine.com

via CPN.com

From Tract to Tres Chic

Annette Wiley: Tract house made modern

"Architect Annette Wiley turned her 1950s tract home in Corona del Mar into a contemporary residence remodeled with environmentally friendly materials and practices. The siding is ipe wood and cement board with recycled content. The steps leading to the entry are decomposed granite. Sculptural succulents are poised out front, a low-water alternative to lawn. The entry path guides visitors past the round planter to the ipe wood gate. The design was conceived by Lisa Gimmy Landscape Architecture of Culver City. The 2,600-square-foot house has Energy Star appliances, a tankless water heater, rooftop solar panels and other green features. But Wiley's goal was for visitors to step through the front door and see a house that looked modern but still warm and comfortable."

via LA Times

Back to Basics

Filed Under: Articles

Tags: construction • economic downturn • economy • real estate

"The 2009 Ernst & Young real estate business risk report itemizes the ten top business risks faced by the industry as ranked by leading analysts."

As we all know, the Real Estate Industry has felt the tightening conditions of economic uncertainty perhaps more than any other sector due to its heavy reliance on capital, which is expected to last for the next couple years due to a looming global credit crunch.

"Given the risks outlined by analysts in the report, it is time for owners, investors and users of real estate to use the time afforded by this lull in real estate activity to prepare their businesses for the next period of economic growth so they can hit the ground running when markets begin to stabilize. This ‘back to basics’ movement will lead to the greater transparency necessary to restore confidence between buyers and sellers"

All the usual suspects such as market fluctuations, economic, and pricing uncertainty are present along with newer entries such as the Green revolution, increased energy costs and misc global factors, all adding up to quite a list to wrap our heads around.

Click here for the complete list and article

Conversations with Frank Gehry

From the recent NYT article:

"When architects cannot erect they write, and thus we can expect an imminent increase in publications by underemployed practitioners of the building art. However, good times or bad, producing books has been mandatory for architects ever since the modernist masters (and masterly self-publicists) Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier committed their ideas as well as their plans to print."

"Frank Gehry, the most acclaimed American architect since Wright, is not a ­natural-born writer. To satisfy the considerable demand for personal explications of his work, Gehry, who turned 80 in February, has avoided the agony of authorship and cooperated with several interviewers on transcribed texts during the past decade. “Conversations With Frank Gehry” is the latest attempt to elicit the essence of his creative method in his own words."

• Click here to read the entire article at NYT

*Smile*

A few housing related jokes for your pleasure...

Compliments of Real Estate Jokes, Humor & Satire

If you think no one cares you're alive, miss a couple of house payments.

The dream of the older generation was to pay off a mortgage. The dream of today's young families is to get one.

My buyers went through debt consolidation. Now they have only one bill they won't pay.

If you want to know exactly where the property line is, just watch the neighbor cut the grass.

The trouble with owning a home is that no matter where you sit, you're looking at something you should be doing.