By Robert
Bell - 7/26/2010
The fresh brown eggs and heirloom tomatoes from old man Jones' farm just over
yonder will more than likely taste better and cost a bit more than their
mass-produced and shipped from who-knows-where counterparts from the mega-mart.
That's fine for someone whose aim is to make a tasty omelet.
But when tasked with something a bit larger in scope - say, a
multimillion-dollar building project - affordability usually trumps local flavor
and environmental concerns. However, there's a good possibility that if Arkansas
developers choose their ingredients wisely, they can have all three.
The yellow sandstone used on Polk Stanley Wilcox's $17 million Arkansas
Studies Institute in Little Rock is one example of a locally sourced building
material that was more affordable than something similar from out of state, said
Reese Rowland, who worked on the award-winning project and is a principal with
the firm.
Many building materials can be sourced in-state, Rowland said.
"You can pretty much cover all the exterior building materials with Arkansas
products," he said.
Via e-mail, he cited several examples: brick from Malvern and Fort Smith;
stone from several quarries; pine from south Arkansas; insulation from BioBased
Technologies in Fayetteville; structural insulated panels from Noark Enterprises
Inc. in North Little Rock; and several others, some of the which are not
headquartered in Arkansas but have significant operations in the state.
Sandstone Source
Locally sourced building materials can also earn points for projects aiming
for LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification from
the U.S. Green Building Council. As far as the USGBC is concerned, local means
from within a 500-mile radius, and the idea behind local sourcing is to lower
emissions used in transporting materials - as well as boosting the local
economy.
But Rowland said that for many years, whenever possible, his firm had sought
materials from closer than that. At the outset of the Arkansas Studies Institute
project, the firm was looking at getting the stone from Minnesota, he said.
"Minnesota is known for that yellow stone, and we were looking at a very thin
kind of, what's called a veneer system," he said. "And we figured out we could
get a full, thick stone if we just changed the size of our stone pieces to
smaller and laid it up like masonry [and then] we could use an Arkansas stone,
which was what we needed to do and wanted to do anyway."
In addition, he said, the cost was significantly less than getting stone from
out of state. He did not specify dollar figures but said that using smaller
pieces of local stone was about half the cost of using out-of-state stone.
"Until we went to Batesville and walked the quarry and found that stone, we
didn't realize we were going to be able to get that yellow of a stone or in that
cut here in Arkansas," Rowland said.
"We're really into trying to service the local economy," he said. "It's smart
business and smart architecture. The shorter the travel distance, the less the
product is going to cost."
Reuse Saves Money
That was certainly the case for the recently completed Audubon Arkansas
headquarters and education center. The project involved remodeling the former
Granite Mountain community center on Springer Boulevard in southeast Little
Rock. One of the primary building components came from about 25 miles away.
"The greenest building is one that's being reused," said Ellen Fennell,
interim director of the environmental preservation group.
Fennell's husband, Tom, was the architect on the $1.3 million project, which
was begun before Ellen Fennell became interim director.
Construction was completed in September and added about 1,500 SF to the
concrete block building, for a total of about 9,000 SF. Straw bales were added
to the exterior walls and then covered in two inches of stucco made from a mix
of mud and lime, Tom Fennell said.
This technique makes for a very energy-efficient building that is also fairly
resistant to fire, because neither the stucco on the outside nor the concrete
blocks on the inside will burn, he said.
"With the straw bales, it doesn't make any sense to bring in straw bales from
Kansas. In fact, it doesn't make any sense to go outside of a couple-county
radius," he said. "These came from Lonoke."
And the mud used in the stucco was local as well, he said.
In addition to implementing sustainable building practices that will lower
operating costs, the Audubon headquarters was also a better deal financially
than building a similarly sized new structure.
"We built this for about two-thirds of what a new building would cost. We had
significant savings, probably $600,000 or $700,000," he said.
Fennell said his firm, Fennell Purifoy Architects, had always tried to
specify that local materials be used for its projects.
"The more wood you can use in a project, the more likely you're going to use
local material," he said.
In recent years, Anthony Forest Products Co. of El Dorado has seen an
increase in the number of customers who are interested in locally sourced and
environmentally sustainable wood, said Kerlin Drake, vice president of marketing
for the lumber company.
"There's been a big demand, and mainly because wood is renewable," Drake
said. "You can go replant it. You can't go replant steel."
Keith Newton is a Little Rock artist and furniture maker who primarily works
with wood, which he sources very locally sometimes. He lives and works in a
brick studio near the intersection of Arch and 23rd streets.
"I bought my sawmill after the tornado came through the neighborhood in '99
in order to pick up and use some of the trees that were blown down," Newton
said.
He ended up using some of that lumber on the renovation of the Governor's
Mansion.
"I did the kitchen of the Governor's Mansion, upstairs back in the private
part. The Huckabees were there, and I used some lumber that was blown down in
that tornado that crossed the Governor's Mansion," Newton said.
Local Spirits
Phil Brandon is turning to local sources for a significant amount of the
products needed for his new venture. Brandon formerly worked at Alltel Corp.
About the time that company was being acquired by Verizon Wireless, he decided
to leave to turn a personal interest into a new business.
Rocktown Distillery recently began producing liquor, made using Arkansas
grains, at its facility near the headquarters of Heifer International in
downtown Little Rock.
"We are buying all our grains from Arkansas farmers through a seed dealer in
Stuttgart," Brandon said. "We use yellow corn and soft red winter wheat in order
to make our bourbon and vodka and gin."
Rocktown's vodka and bourbon will be made with all local ingredients, but not
so with the gin, which derives its flavor from a mix of herbs and botanicals
such as juniper berries, coriander, licorice root and many others. Brandon tried
to find local sources for some of these ingredients, but so far to no avail.
"I talked to a guy about coriander, and it just didn't make sense for him to
farm it," he said. "Some things you just can't get because of the climate or
what have you. But I'm trying to do my best to get everything I can from local
suppliers."
Stratton Seed Co. has so far delivered 5,000 pounds of corn and a similar
amount of wheat for Rocktown, which will have the capacity to produce about 150
cases of liquor a week, Brandon said. A case of liquor is typically 12 bottles,
each containing 750 milliliters.
The vodka and gin should be available in stores, restaurants and bars across
Arkansas by late August, with the bourbon, which will be aged for several months
in charred white oak barrels, available later, he said.
Brandon found a local source for the barrels in Gibbs Bros. Cooperage, which
has been manufacturing wooden barrels in Hot Springs for more than a century.
The corrugated cardboard boxes used to ship the finished product will also come
from a local source, Lamb & Associates Packaging in Maumelle.
"And I'm using good Little Rock water, and natural gas," Brandon said.
The choice to use as many local products as possible was something Brandon
set out to do from the beginning.
"I think it's the right thing to do and the cost isn't any higher for me and,
plus, the savings in freight just really makes sense financially," he
said.
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