Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/74664
asked: How can we activate down- town?" The site had been unsuccess- fully developed before. Two church- owned centers, ZCMI Center and the adjacent Crossroads Plaza, faltered in the 1990s and closed in 2006, a year before plans were announced for their replacement. "One of the first things we looked at was the size of the blocks," Loch said. Like many cities in the Western U.S., Salt Lake City was laid out with huge blocks that en- compassed 10 acres each, the equal of nine blocks in the East. "They aren't very walkable or [walker] friendly," said Loch. The development team, includ- ing Seattle-based architecture firm Callison, decided to break those large blocks into smaller ones to cre- ate quadrants that became the basis for the project's design. "We wanted those blocks to have the kind of po- rosity where anyone who walked MULTI CORP. USED GREEN BUILDING TECHNIQUES AT MARMARA FORUM, IN ISTANBUL. building practices. Soon af- ter the OPEC oil embargo in 1973, the government began creating policies to encourage energy-use reduction in com- mercial buildings, some of them voluntary and others re- quired by code. "There are in- creasingly strict rules coming from authorities on technical sustainability issues," Ruigrok said. "The Netherlands is one of the most demanding countries. We are constantly improving our technical stan- dards and knowledge, and that knowledge we can bring to other countries where we have development offices. We are forced to innovate, and technical matters such as window design and lighting, and the availability of alternative transportation. Taken together, such measures contribute to sustainability, defined by British archi- tect Sir Norman Foster as achieving the maximum return with the minimum use of resources. But sustainability, too, can mean different things to differ- ent people. "Discussions about sustainability are usually about energy, materials and these kinds of things," said Arno Ruigrok, associate director of Netherlands-based developer Multi Corp. and head of its research operation. "We think sustainability in a shopping center should be about creating spaces that people re- ally love, that are where they want to be, where they want to spend time, places that have such quality and attract so many people that they will survive their normal economic life span." Multi Corp. has had sustainability policies in place since the early 1990s, a reflection of the Dutch government's support for green that's something we can export to other countries." The costs associated with green construction have to be re- couped in some fashion. But these buildings bear 30 percent lower energy costs than conventional buildings, on average, according to RREEF, the real estate division of Deutsche Bank, and they use less water and have lower maintenance costs. The goal of sustainability has indeed spread around the world, as evidenced by the increased use of LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the program run by the U.S. Green Building Council. "Even as recently as five or six years ago, we used to ask our clients in China if they in- tended to make it a green building or have it LEED-certified when it was completed, and they looked at us like we were speaking a foreign language," said Rasheed. "Now they are experts on the subject, and even before we walk in, they know what they are looking for." — CH AUGUST 2012 / SCT 39