GREEN SPACE: If there must be big box, this is how to do it

Big Box conjures up long car trips, SUVs and suburbia -- hardly an environmentalist's dream. But Fairlane Green in Allen Park is much different. The redevelopment of a landfill breaks the mold when it comes to multi-acre, multi-tenant retail development and, in doing so, received a national Phoenix Award on May 6 for excellence in brownfield development.

The project, which is the first multi-tenant retail development to earn gold-level LEED certification, has over a million square feet of shops and restaurants surrounded by natural green space, including prairie fields, ponds, trails and a planned 43-acre park.

All of this on top of a landfill that Ford Motor Company owns and has retained responsibility for.

Fairlane Green is the country's largest development built on a landfill and the largest landfill redevelopment in the state. It's the first development in Michigan to use a three-dimensional legal description so that Ford keeps the landfill and the surface can be sold to developers. The entire project is built on Styrofoam-like blocks called geofoam that reduces the potential for future settlement.

Each individual building maximizes energy efficiency, has white reflective roofing and re-uses rainwater.

All this has netted the project some impressive accolades. It was named the outstanding brownfield project in the country by the Phoenix Awards -- the brownfields equivalent of the Oscars -- at the national brownfields conference held in Detroit this week.

"What's great about us winning the award this year is that it's the first time the national brownfields conference has came to Detroit," says Stefanie Denby of Ford Land, the development arm of Ford Motor Co. "To win in own backyard is really great."

And that's not all. Fairlane Green also landed the The People’s Choice Award, as it received the most votes from the 7,000 conference attendees.

Read more about the conference and the importance of brownfield redevelopment here.

Source: Stefanie Denby, Ford Land
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh