[CPEO-BIF] How Red Seal Homes builds on solvent-contaminated property

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Family-owned Red Seal Homes never shies away from challenge

By Edward Welsch 
Medill News Service/Chicago Daily Herald
February 16, 2005 

Turning cornfields into tract housing is pretty easy. Just ask any large
real estate development company.

It's harder to build in an area already disfigured by design mistakes,
sprawl and environmental disasters. Of the companies that try, not all
know how to cope with local residents and government agencies that may
resist change.

...

The process of redeveloping a parcel of land in an already built-up area
is called infill development, and it is pocked with inherent obstacles.

The Shermer Place development in Northbrook was an infill that required
a creative touch. Hoffman described it as abandoned industrial buildings
with broken windows and water collecting in pools inside. "It looked
like something you would have seen on the near west side of Chicago," he said.

Not just an eyesore, Shermer Place had solvent contamination in the soil
in certain areas. That made it impossible to build the basements
required for single-family homes that are typical of Northbrook's
residential sites.

To get around this problem, Red Seal designed above-ground condominiums
over the pollution, which sealed it under the concrete.

Red Seal then leavened the development with town homes and single-family
homes in the unpolluted areas so that the development didn't stand out
as a towering block of condos.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailyherald.com/business/business_story.asp?intid=38399157

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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