Austin

LEED Platinum Ronald MacDonald house in Austin was a modern marvel. The designers modeled the sun's progress over the project to determine optimum shade placement for structural elements, offer pressurized rooms that never share air with another patients' room, solar panels to aid with lowering electric bills, 10 inch deep planters on the roof areas to absorb and cool the suns rays, low volatility paint and glues meant the building never had a typical building site smell, and to take the cake, monitored the humidity in the project during construction to ensure mold was unable to form. This Platinum LEED project is a pleasure to visit and meets the statement "the building itself must be part of the healing process."

The house is located close to a childrens' hospital and offers a place for parents of sickly children to stay close-by. Large windows in all rooms allow a direct visual connection with the hospital helping parents feel more connected in their trying time.

Ken, the CEO stated that they recovered the costs of the green rating within 2 years of opening as their operating costs are 60% lower than in a traditional building.

I can see no reason for this project to remain the exception instead of the norm for commercial projects of all kinds.

A view of the childrens' hospital from the Macdonald House.


Next we looked at the Meuller Project located a stonesthrow from the hospital. This master planned community has benifited from clever negotiations with the city as they hold the rights to purchase the land but do not have a tax cost in the meantime. When they find a buyer for a lot, they sell it to a developer who must follow the guidelines for the community. The master developer makes a 15% markup on the property.

Many of their developers and builders are green builders and maintain at least a 3 star rating under the Austin Green Building rating system. The community offers many running trails and outdoor spaces to mitigate the effect of zero lot line housing.

This is an interesting project as it seems the master developer has low costs for controlling such a large development with the ability to wait out the unfavorable market cycles.

It seems to me that many of the projects we have seen so far that have been successful have found an interesting and unique way to wait out the market cycle. I expect the rest of the developers have not faired so well.

The Mueller Master Planned Development