Dick Pace is going back to the future at the Baker Electric building where electric cars for Millionaires Row elite were once assembled. Where chauffeurs pulled into bays and plugged in for overnight recharging, Pace’s Cumberland Development is once again tapping cutting-edge ideas to bring life to this Midtown technology center. Often the best new ideas are old ones, Pace discovered, especially when they’re attached to hefty financial incentives to build ‘green’ in existing, industrial-era buildings.

Pace readily admits, reusing a space where he discovered oak paneled offices, ceramic tile floors, tall ceilings with exposed duct work and a connection to urban amenities like the Cleveland Clinic and the new transit line with hybrid buses on Euclid Avenue helped market the building to his (current) three young, tech-savvy tenants. He estimates the existing shell of the building, the amenities that ‘new urbanist’ developments are paying big bucks to recreate in the suburbs, and a ready pipeline of public financing literally made the deal a go. After $3 million in historic and New Market tax credits and a $1 million brownfield loan from Cuyahoga County’s Department of Development ($400,000 of which will be forgiven if the building meets its job creation goals), Pace needed only $1 million in private equity.

“Our site selection led to a $3 million benefit because of the tax credits,” Pace says. “We couldn’t have done this project in Solon or anywhere else but Cleveland and the Euclid Corridor.”

In fact, the public funds gave Pace the confidence to invest in a LEED-certified design that includes a $800,000 geothermal system. Geothermal heating and cooling may have a $190,000 premium over a conventional HVAC system, but the $30,000 annual utility savings that Pace passes along to his tenants is another valuable marketing tool (especially to attract energy-intensive biomed and tech research firms).

Other green features include:

• Energy modeling to determine focus for energy conservation
• A soy-based foam roof is reflective, means no petrochemicals or VOCs were used and heat island effect is reduced.
• Showers and bike racks installed
• Native plants and no irrigation system
• Waterless urinals
• 75% of construction waste diverted from the landfill

This is the second time Cumberland installed geothermal in a redevelopment project—the first time was at its renovation of an LTV Steel building into the Independence Technology Center. The Baker Electric project had a $7.5 million price tag, therefore, the geothermal system totaled a 3% premium. The system has a five-year payback.

Before Pace spoke, City of Cleveland Office of Sustainability director Andrew Watterson added that, in addition to the county loan, the city’s Housing Trust Fund will make an additional $200,000 available for any building that has LEED standards.