McCormack Baron Salazar’s Renaissance Place at Grand neighborhood was recently Certified in the U.S. Green Building Council LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) Pilot program.

With this distinction, Renaissance Place becomes the first LEED-ND Certified site in Missouri and the largest of only six completed LEED-ND sites certified worldwide to date. Renaissance Place at Grand is the latest demonstration of McCormack Baron Salazar’s commitment to being the nation’s leading for-profit developer of Green, mixed-income, urban communities.

“USGBC-St. Louis Regional Chapter is thrilled that we will have one of the first LEED-ND Certified Completed Neighborhoods in the country here in our backyard. The leadership of McCormack Baron Salazar and St. Louis Housing Authority are helping to put St. Louis on the map in terms of our sustainability efforts,” said Emily Andrews, Executive Director of USGBC St. Louis Regional Chapter.

The LEED-ND Rating System integrates principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national certification system that provides independent, third-party verification that a development’s location and design meet accepted high levels of environmentally responsible, sustainable development. LEED-ND is collaboration between USGBC, Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Renaissance Place at Grand is a 512-unit, 33-acre, mixed-income, mixed use, and multigenerational community that revitalized the former Blumeyer Public Housing Complex. Completed in 2008, the development was a partnership between MBS, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, St. Louis Housing Authority and Blumeyer Village Tenant Association. The neighborhood is immediately northeast of the Grand Center Arts District in the City of St. Louis and includes one- through five-bedroom apartments and townhouses, senior citizen and disabled-accessible units, a full-service community center, and a range of neighborhood amenities. The Certified neighborhood includes not only the apartment community but also the enhanced Chambers Park as well as the new green-built headquarters of the St. Louis Housing Authority, developed with McCormack Baron Salazar in 2009.

Cheryl Lovell, Executive Director of the St. Louis Housing Authority, commends the collaborative efforts of BVTA, MBS, KAI, HUD and the City of St. Louis under the Blumeyer HOPE VI Grant that led to the LEED-ND distinction. “The remarkable transformation of the area was key to our decision to locate our new headquarters in the area.”

Renaissance Place received outstanding LEED-ND scores in the areas of “Smart Location & Linkages” and “Neighborhood Pattern & Design” rising from its connections to amenities in the surrounding community–a variety of retail stores, cultural institutions, schools and recreational options–all accessible within a 1/2 mile walking distance or convenient Metro transit lines. Renaissance Place also met its “Green Construction and Technology” targets by using environmentally sensitive construction techniques and by ensuring that brownfield contamination, storm water runoff and pollution from construction activities were significantly reduced or completely abated. The site also avoided environmental disruptions by using pre-existing water and wastewater infrastructure, restoring the historic street grid and using a dense design that helps to minimize unnecessary land use.

“This recognition would not have been possible without the strong interest of the St. Louis Housing Authority to support the team’s effort to achieve thoughtful sustainability and green goals. From the beginning, we encouraged participation and input from community stakeholders to help guide our staff throughout the implementation process which was important towards achieving this unique distinction,” said Vince Bennett, Chief Operating Officer of McCormack Baron Salazar.

The property operates at nearly 100 percent residential occupancy and is professionally managed by McCormack Baron Ragan Property Management. Family support services are provided by McCormack Baron’s nonprofit partner Urban Strategies and Blumeyer Village Tenant Management Association.

McCormack Baron Salazar also recently completed the development of one of only six LEED Platinum-Certified Schools in the United States (Crossroads School, St. Louis, MO), and is on-track to complete three high-performance, Enterprise Green communities in St. Louis, Memphis, and Miami, respectively.

About McCormack Baron Salazar (http://www.mccormackbaron.com) is a nationally acclaimed leader of affordable urban housing development. Since its inception in 1973, the firm has developed 15,260 units of affordable housing and 1.2 million in retail/commercial square footage in 33 urban markets totaling more than $2.1 billion in development investment. The firm’s mission is to rebuild neighborhoods in central cities across the United States that have deteriorated through decades of neglect and disinvestment. McCormack Baron Salazar headquarters are located in St. Louis, Missouri, with offices in Los Angeles and Memphis.

About The St. Louis Housing Authority (http://www.slha.org) (SLHA) is a municipal corporation created by state statute, formed in 1939. SLHA, funded entirely by federal sources from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), has approximately 90 employees and an annual operating budget of approximately $60 million. The agency serves approximately 23,000 clients and partners, including Public Housing residents and Section 8 participants. SLHA’s mission is to efficiently build and maintain desirable, affordable housing for residents of the St. Louis area through forthright leadership, innovative partnerships, progressive technology, and expansion of new resource and to seek to improve quality of life for its employees, residents, and the community by providing employment opportunities, education, training, and ethical, professional service.

With the EPA-established deadline of April 22, 2010 requiring contractors to get their certification for Lead RRP past, CALINC Training, the primary source for lead-based RRP certification in Northern California and the training division of CAL INC – has certified 1,500 contractors in the first five months of 2010. Lead is a highly toxic metal that may cause a range of health problems, not only for the contractors working on a building but primarily for young children living in or around these buildings and whose immune systems may not be fully developed.

“As Northern California’s premier provider of lead-based paint, Asbestos, Hazwoper, and OSHA construction safety training, CAL INC is proud of our contribution to ensuring all EPA compliance requirements are met by contractors working around lead-based paint in pre-1978 dwellings,” commented David Esparza, president and CEO of CAL INC. “And we are continuously working to add more programs to assist contractors in their certifications.”

The EPA’s Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule (40 CFR 745) requires notification/education of occupants and the use of safe work practices when working around lead paint in all pre-1978 homes, child care facilities, and schools. This includes any disturbance or removal of building components that have not been certified lead-free. A disturbance is any activity that may cause lead paint to become airborne, including sanding, surface prep, demolition, drilling, cutting, grinding, etc. Any contractor that performs renovations must be trained and certified in compliance with EPA requirements. This requires an EPA-approved 8 hr Certified Renovator course.

“We have come a long way towards identifying and eliminating sources of toxic lead in the residential environments,” commented Carla Wroten, Director, CALINC Training, “and with our Lead Renovator certification course, there are now over 1,500 more contractors in California that can work in a safe environment and keep families lead-free.”

About CALINC Training
CALINC Training, LLC, a division of CAL INC, is the premier Northern California training organization providing environmental, safety, and hazardous material courses that meet or exceed EPA and OSHA requirements. CALINC Training offers students a combination of classroom training and hands-on exercises at their Vacaville, California facility in addition to providing on-site training at client locations, and is currently the primary source for EPA Lead-based paint RRP certification in Northern California. For more information and a schedule of classes, visit www.cal-inc.com/training or call 800.359.4467.

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