Environment
Chicago Approves Big Grants for Green-Roof Retrofits
(archrecord.construction.com - 07/19/2006)
By Kevin
McCarthy
A cool hundred grand. That’s what
the city of Chicago is offering downtown building owners to
combat the urban heat island effect. In June the city council
approved the $500,000 Green Roof Improvement Fund, or GRIFTIF,
a tax-increment financing pilot program. It authorizes the
Department of Planning and Development (DPD) to award grants
as large as $100,000 for retrofitting buildings with green
roofs.
The ordinance applies to the 40-square-block
Central Loop District, which Green Projects Administrator
Michael Berkshire says is one of the city’s most severe
zones for heat-island warming as well as stormwater runoff.
Building owners who consider planting their roofs either apply
online at the DPD’s website (which will also feature
information regarding green roof designers, contractors, and
other resources) or contacting the department directly. Successful
applicants will be reimbursed for half of all expenses up
to the $100,000 limit. Even though Berkshire reports that
Chicagoans currently are cultivating 2.5 million square feet
of green roofs across 200 projects, he admits, “There
is risk—this is a new venture in the U.S. and cost is
the main impediment.”
City assistance should ease that pain.
Green roof retrofits cost $10 per square foot on average,
Berkshire says, and most downtown buildings’ roofs measure
10,000 to 12,000 square feet. By that calculation, he hopes
to fund as many as 10 retrofits by the end of the year. And
if the funds dry up, then the program is a success. “We’ll
move to more districts.”
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