EnviroCon: Green Square Project Moving Forward

Here is a sleeper project that I think is not talked about much. The Green Square project will involve two new buildings and a parking deck on the south side of Jones St. between Dawson and Salisbury St. The billboards placed around the site give the following details:

  • Headquarters for the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources
  • The Nature Research Center, an expansion of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences
  • Visitor and employee parking deck
  • Retail store and restaurant

They also mention the following actions in the near future:

  • Sustainable demolition of three existing buildings
  • Reuse of demolition materials
  • Recycling of construction material
  • Applied energy-efficient building technology
  • Monitoring for potential wind and solar energy
  • Monitoring for rainwater retention and runoff

A friend of mine is involved in a small aspect of this project and he told me that these buildings will be coming down very soon. So for those that want to see these brick boxes for one last time, you better make your way out there. Here are the three buildings being demolished and an area map in Google.

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From what I’ve heard about this project is that both buildings will be connected with a walkway over McDowell St. The Nature Center will also be connected to the existing Natural Science Museum with its own glass walkway over Salisbury St. There are no new renderings available except this one on the city’s Livable Streets website, which may be a little old.

Looks like this old rendering during “Bugfest 2004” supports some of the stated bullets. You can see a couple wind generators and lots of green rooftops. The rumor is that these buildings are seeking a Gold LEED standard. I really doubt that a couple of wind generators will be running this building; these will probably be on display as part of the museum. Just my guess though.

At this point, the only thing I’m curious to know about is the parking deck. Will it be well placed behind the office buildings such as The L? If it is put directly next to the sidewalk, will it have retail space on the street? We’ll wait and see.