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The Fairlane Green shopping center, set to open in the fall, will focus on the environment with features that include green spaces, bio-swales and energy-reducing building features.Allen Park project adopts green approach
Shopping center will be built on a landfill and include environmentally friendly features, parks.
The Allen Park shopping center is being built on a closed landfill.
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ALLEN PARK -- A sprawling $150 million retail project set to open this fall could be mistaken for the latest cookie-cutter shopping center offering everything from Barnes & Noble books to Old Navy clothing.
But Fairlane Green, now taking shape on the site of a closed industrial landfill in Allen Park, is on the leading edge of a movement toward green and sustainable development.
Ford Motor Land Development Co. has planned every aspect of Fairlane Green with the environment and conservation in mind.
The shopping center will have 1 million square feet of retail space, but two-thirds of the site will remain undeveloped green space complete with a park and walking trails.
Engineers carved out rainwater retention ponds to conserve water and provide natural habitats for plants and wildlife.
The buildings themselves will feature energy-saving white reflective roofs and "green screens" on the outer walls that allow ivy trellises to grow.
"Ford Land is taking what was a big, old hill and turning into a major asset for the community," said Allen Park Mayor Richard Huebler.
"They're taking what everyone saw as a dump and transferring it into a useful piece of property," Huebler said.
"You don't have to shop there. You can go there and enjoy nature."
Ford Land is implementing several innovative features.
They include such environmental ideas used in the restoration of Ford Motor Co.'s Rouge industrial complex five years ago.
"We learned so much at the Rouge about how the environment can help encourage natural habitats, boost worker morale and save money, that we want to share it with the world," said Sean McCourt, Ford Land chairman.
"We're still experimenting, but we don't want to keep everything to ourselves."
The Ford Rouge Center's new F-150 pickup plant has a 10.4-acre living roof where sedum, an ivy-like plant, soaks up rainwater, reduces heating and cooling bills and provides a habitat for birds and insects.
"Now you see fish in the (neighboring) Rouge River that you never saw before because the added landscaping is helping to boost the dissolved oxygen levels," said William McDonough, an architect who helped redevelop the Rouge complex.
Both the Rouge Center and Fairlane Green dovetail with the more environmentally friendly approach to business championed by Ford Motor Chairman and CEO Bill Ford Jr.
Ford Land worked closely with the U.S. Green Building Council in Washington, D.C., and other groups in designing Fairlane Green.
"We looked at Ford Rouge Center as a pilot program, and now at Fairlane Green we're asking, 'Are there even better ways to do things?'" said Roger Gaudette, Ford Land's director of engineering and construction.
Ford Land encouraged tenants at Fairlane Green to embrace green practices. Target, for example, is installing more than 250 skylights at its Fairlane Green store to reduce energy consumption.
A large cistern was installed outside the store to collect rainwater. The store is slated to open in October.
Brendan Owens of the U.S. Green Building Council said Fairlane Green is part of a small but growing number of projects around the country making environmental sustainability a priority.
The nonprofit group, founded in 1993, began offering a rating program five years ago to office developers that measures energy-saving practices within buildings.
The program, called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, provides companies with a way to measure and promote their environmental sensitivity.
"It used to be you cut the grass, level the land and build the strip center," said Owens, LEED program manager for technical support.
"But major corporations and others are finding that they can distinguish themselves from the competition by offering better indoor air quality or some other environmental attribute."
Since launching LEED, the Council's corporate membership has grown to 6,000 companies, up from 300 five years ago.
Owens said Fairlane Green is a perfect example of more forward-thinking development.
A typical retail project is packed with 10,000 feet of retail space per acre, according to The International Council of Shopping Centers, a trade association. Fairlane Green will have 4,000 square feet of retail space per acre.
Fairlane Green's 243-acre site near the Southfield Freeway and Oakwood Boulevard was home to a clay mine used by Ford Motor starting in the 1920s.
Ford converted a portion of the site into an industrial landfill in the mid-1950s. The landfill closed last year. Under the redevelopment, Ford Land said it wants to protect wildlife habitats and woodlands. The retention ponds may eventually be stocked with fish.
The added open space allowed Ford Land to design a large number of bio-swales, or landscaped ditches, along with the retention ponds, to help clean storm water runoff from buildings and parking lots.
Conventional developments dump storm water into sewer lines, where it is either treated at a municipal wastewater treatment plant or, during peak periods, flushed into area waterways. Fairlane Green will not feature plant-covered roofs like the Ford Rouge factory.
"We looked at having green roofs at Fairlane Green, but given we had the open space, we opted for treating the storm water with the bio-swales," said Mark Tomyn, development manager, during a driving tour of Fairlane Green this week. Allen Park and the state are providing $30 million in tax incentives for the project. The development, to be fully built out in 2008, is expected to create 2,000 jobs.
Among the stores scheduled to open in the fall and spring are Target, Barnes & Noble, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Famous Footwear, Lane Bryant, Longhorn Steakhouse, Michaels', Old Navy, On-The-Border, Pier 1 Imports, T.J. Maxx and World Market.
A second phase of stores, slated to open in 2007, will likely include Meijer, Home Depot, Dick's Sporting Goods and Best Buy, McCourt said.
A third phase is scheduled to open in 2008.
A neighboring shopping center, to be called Independence Marketplace, will open in the fall and include Lowe's, Jo-Ann Superstore, PetCo, Staples, Cold Stone Creamery, Guitar Center, The Vitamin Shoppe, Applebee's and Johnny Corino's Italian County, said Daniel Stern.
Stern is the principal of Lormax Stern Development Co. in West Bloomfield Township, which partnered with Redico, a full service real estate firm in Southfield.
You can reach R.J. King at (313) 222-2504 or rjking@detnews.com.
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