innovate arkansas

Burkhalter Capital Development's 40,000-SF office building is touted as the largest privately owned, for-profit green project to date in Arkansas.

The L-shaped development near the state Capitol will occupy most of a block bounded by Victory Street on the east, Seventh Street on the south, Woodlane Street on the west and Sixth Street on the north.

An asbestos survey is under way, and site work is expected to start by June.

"We're getting close," said Don Overton, finance director with Little Rock's Burkhalter & Stevens Inc.

"We're just working all the final details with the fire marshal."

Burkhalter & Stevens is shooting for completion by January 2009, quite a goal for what is viewed as a 12-month job under a normal timetable.

Little Rock businessman John Burkhalter is a lead investor in both Burkhalter Capital Development and Burkhalter & Stevens, general contractor for Arkansas First.

The project design of Heiple + Wiedower Architects in Little Rock features the look of an older building with the amenities of a new one. Adjoining parking for Arkansas First will have space for 60 vehicles.

The four-story structure will be crowned with a 1,800-SF conservatory on its roof/deck. The glass-enclosed structure will serve as a meeting room or a covered gathering place for rooftop events at the building.

"We are going to have a green roof," said Bill Wiedower, partner at Heiple + Wiedower. "The landscaping will cut the heat absorption of the roof and acts as insulation and reduces radiant heat."

In addition to the green plantings capping the building, Arkansas First will feature other green characteristics. The exterior walls will be made of insulated concrete forms, which are known in the industry as ICFs.

The energy-efficient wall system is a hollow panel composed of expanded polystyrene made for stacking. Reinforcing steel is placed in the panels for additional strength, and concrete is poured inside the wall of hollow panels.

The process results in a concrete center sandwiched between layers of foam insulation ready for exterior and interior finish-out. Panels supporting between 4 and 8 inches of concrete are typical.

The building will be equipped with a high-efficiency heating and cooling system to take advantage of the green design.

Burkhalter hopes his Arkansas First project will gain Green Globe certification from the Green Building Initiative of Portland, Ore.

Burkhalter intends to set up shop on the fourth floor, and much of the first three floors is said to be pre-leased to a roster of tenants dominated by various lobbyist groups.

The proximity to the Capitol will be a plus for Burkhalter as well. He is serving the second year of a four-year appointment to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

Green Pipeline

The Arkansas First Building is one of nine green commercial jobs that Burkhalter & Stevens has in the construction pipeline in Arkansas.

The list includes a 4,800-SF expansion of Smith Springs Baptist Church in Morrilton undergoing bid review. Construction of a $400,000, 4,500-SF annex to the Howard County Courthouse in Nashville is in motion. The first of two 28,000-SF office buildings in Conway is in the design stage.

Burkhalter & Stevens also is building the second phase of the Highway 10 Executive Suites project for Little Rock's Hart-Lazenby Commercial LLC.

The three buildings now under construction will look similar to the existing 6,000-SF Executive Suites building, a conventional construction project.

But the new trio of 6,000-SF buildings on the 1.8-acre site in west Little Rock will feature exterior walls made of insulated concrete forms.

"We've been real pleased with it," said Hart-Lazenby partner Todd Hart. "In addition to being green, it's a very sound structure."

ICF walls also make a huge difference in blocking about 84 percent more noise than conventional walls. The tradeoff is that ICF construction is 150 to 185 percent more expensive than wooden walls, depending on the type of ICF system.

From the perspective of an overall construction budget, ICF adds 7 to 8 percent to upfront building costs.

"It does cost more, but energy prices keep going up," Overton said. "People don't want to look at the long-term savings. They want to look at the short-term."

On the flipside, using an ICF system can reduce the construction time on a project. That can produce savings by shortening the borrowing time on a construction loan, which typically carries a higher interest rate than permanent financing on a completed project.

Overton said using ICFs cuts 25 to 30 percent off front-end time during construction and that his firm does its own ICF work to help control costs.

"We initially got into this to speed up our own projects," he said.

Working on Legislation

The ICF investment adds to the value of the building, and Overton hopes to make green projects more financially attractive through tax incentives.

He is working to help develop legislation to create tax rebates in Arkansas for building green or minimizing energy use. Overton said about 15 other states have enacted some form of incentives to encourage green projects.

"I have the bills from other states, and I'm in the process of molding what they have done to Arkansas," Overton said.

Hart-Lazenby has worked with green construction on several retail projects, such as the 10,300-SF Crossroads Retail Center in Cabot, the 12,000-SF 625 Salem Road project in Conway and the 5,000-SF 3321 JFK Blvd. project in North Little Rock. The Highway 10 Executive Suites is its first green office project.

"We've had pretty good luck with the [retail] buildings," Hart said. "We don't pay the utilities in the retail buildings, and we're anxious to see what the ultimate savings will be in the office buildings."

Hart-Lazenby Commercial will be picking up the monthly utilities for the Highway 10 Executive Suites project as part of a full-service lease package. ICF walls are touted as reducing the cost of heating and cooling by 30 to 40 percent.

"The energy efficiency of this makes it appealing because the tenants know what they're paying from month to month," said Overton of Burkhalter & Stevens.

The company originally was formed as Hart-Lazenby Construction in January 2005, with partners Todd Hart, Blake Lazenby and Joey Stevens.

The venture was renamed Burkhalter & Stevens Inc. after John Burkhalter joined with Stevens to buy out the interests of Hart and Lazenby in June 2007.

"That's when we made the full push into green building," Overton said. "That's our niche and the bulk of what we do."

The company's most grand green proposal is the Harbor Towne development. Planned for construction east of the Heifer International campus in downtown Little Rock, the project will present a mix of residential condos, offices and retail space, with a marina component.

Burkhalter & Stevens hopes to start building the Mediterranean-style project during the next two years. Estimated build-out cost of Harbor Towne: $200 million to $300 million.

"Do we want to go for green certification, or do we just want to build green?" Overton said. "That's still up in the air and will be a factor of cost. Our focus is building green buildings, not necessarily certified buildings."