The Green Garage

Full construction mode (and a little history lesson)

We're in full construction mode right now, and you don't need to enter the building to sense the scale of what is happening. Walking down Second Avenue, you hear the sounds of construction a couple of blocks away. As you approach, the smell of welding and drilling fills the air. Once inside, it's difficult to hold any sort of extensive conversation because crews are working in pretty much every area within the building (so we speak with a lot of pauses). If you are ambitious enough to open your laptop and attempt work, as Joe, Tom and Kirsten do every day, you need to clean off the grit before packing it up at the end of the day. I tend to record everything on film and get it up at home!

So let me get you up to date. Last week we began opening up the beautiful front windows that had been bricked since 1968. In case you are unfamiliar with the story of these windows, they were bricked up the year after the riots, in 1968, after the insurance company told the owners that they would no longer be insured if they did not cover the windows. When we began taking out the inside bricks last year, we were surprised to find the original windows still intact. So we took those windows out, cut them up, and have stored them for use when we build our greenhouse. We will be using the frames for interior windows. Here is a photo of the first window opened at the end of the day last Friday.

During our Friday meeting, we spent some time talking about the significance of this, and a little about the history of the building. Marilyn Beckham joined us, whose grandfather, Samuel Kanners (of Kanners and Patrize) spent decades working in the building in the shoe supply business. For us, it was a good time to pause in our construction and think about who had been in this building and how their lives had been affected by what was happening in the city...and what was to come.

This week the rest of the windows have been removed, and right now crews are working to get the openings ready for the new windows (which are waiting inside).

In other construction-related news, the framing has begun for the walls.

Kevin Gardner is making progress on the wood wall that will surround our new stairway. The wall is made from wood scraps that we have no other use for.

The alley is progressing on schedule. Here is how it looked Wednesday, with sections of concrete and sections of historic brick. The brick will get power washed to restore its beauty, but you can get a sense of the look. We go to pick up the plants from Native Plant Nursery in Mason, MI, next Monday. Planting should be on the 1st and the 2nd of July.

Dan Scarsella of Motor City Brewing Works brought over his hi-lo on Wednesday to move the pavers from inside the building to the alley, with a little help from GG people to balance the weight.

In other news, we had 2 film crews out Wednesday. The first is an independent group who are developing a film about post-industrial cities and how they are reconfiguring themselves, particularly in relation to green business. They are trying to sell this as a series to the Discovery Channel. The Green Garage will be featured in their pilot. Here I am doing some filming by the alley.

We also met with Ron Williams and his Free Speech TV crew Wednesday afternoon. They are here with the US Social Forum, and talked with us about the genesis of our idea and what we hope our work will accomplish. I did feel for the sound men yesterday, as they had some pretty difficult challenges with all the construction noise.

Some of us are spending some time off site right now, learning all we can about the history of this property. For a few hours every Thursday, mostly at the Detroit Public Library, we are tracing the roots of this property to see who lived or worked here in the past. Our building history page shows you some of this work. We have traced ownership of the general Cass farms area back to before the American Revolution (Charles Courtois, Francois Berthelet and Charles Beaubien owned it at the time). Some other points of interest:

• Lewis Cass purchased the property in 1816 for $12,000, and it became known as Cass Farms
• In the late 1900's, as Detroit became a leading manufacturing center, this area became home to wealthy Detroiters, with property bordering Woodward Avenue housing the wealthiest
• By the early 1920's, with the advent of the automobile, this property was home to many of the first automobile dealerships, including the parcel where the GG now stands
• The Depression of the '30's greatly affected the area, and the magnificent large homes were turned into multiple family residences
• We found the first family to own a home on our property was the Mulliken family (John, Emma and sons Harry and George), from 1882-1896. John was a general manager at the Detroit, Lansing & Northern Railroad, and the Chicago & West Michigan Railway. After John died at age 55 in 1892, Emma lived in the home until 1896, when she moved to Farnsworth St.
• We traced ownership through subsequent families (the Ross family, the Doyle family, Samuel Jacobs and Fred Reissman) until 1919, when the homes must have been destroyed in order to erect the building we are in now.
• Our building was built in 1920, with the DeFord Motor Truck Company as the first tenant in 1921. A series of automotive-related businesses passed through the doors until 1941, when Sam Kanners brought his shoe supply business to the building, and stayed until around 1996.

In digging up the foundation for our greenhouse (on the alley side of the building), we have found numerous artifacts that must have come from these previous residences, such as a fork, medicine bottles (possibly related to a chemical company that listed residence there for a year), bones (dog?), and foundation bricks.

We have more research to do, as we just discovered that 3 residences were on the site, not just the one we supposed was there. So back to the library! And eventually we'd like to trace the site back to indigenous owners, before the western world made an imprint.

June 11 Construction Update

The main action right now involves alley and the windows. If you live near to the alley, you are well aware that it's in full construction mode right now. This past week Redford Cement finished removing the cement and grading both the alley and the back of our property. Classic Landscape stepped in next to apply the sub-base. First they laid down a permeable geo-textile material that looks like a tarp. It will allow water to filter through but will prevent the stones from becoming embedded into the clay.

Next, Classic Landscape had to move this pile of stones into the alley....

using this little front-end loader.

By Friday morning, the alley looked like this:

Smaller stones came next. This is a good spot to mention that this is back-breaking work for these crews. Most of the initial shoveling and spreading was done by hand, as shown below.

When this layer is completed, Redford Cement will be back to lay the cement portions of the alley, and then Classic returns to lay down the historic bricks. This will be followed by the permeable pavers, and finally the compost for the gardens. If you have forgotten what the ally design will look like, here's a cross-section done by Woody Melcher of Woodbury Associates.

Regarding the windows, we now have almost all of the windows in except for the historic front windows. The first western-facing windows went into the annex this week.

Next Friday at noon we will begin removing the bricks from the beautiful arched windows out front, and we will have a gathering to commemorate the occasion. Anyone is welcome to attend.

In other news, we have contracted with a wood smith from Troy named Lon Ullman to develop the wood for our floors. Lon has a network of tree operators who confiscate fallen trees and cut them on site with their portable sawmill. The wood is dried in his solar kiln (drying wood prevents it from buckling and developing gaps after installation). We'll be using a variety of woods for our floor, but the majority will be ash. Below, Lon is showing us a sample during our Friday meeting.

In our quest to find used materials, Kirsten found a great source for 2x6 boards (8 ft long) on Craigslist. We need quite a number of these boards for framing, and she located a shipping company in Brownstown Twsp. that collects these regularly from their shipments. They usually go to a landfill, but now they are saving them for us. They will cost us $1.50 apiece (regular price: $3-$4). Kirsten makes weekly trips with Joe's truck to pick them up.

One last picture of the stair risers going in....

An update on the alley

The alley is progressing, but we are a couple of weeks behind schedule. The reasons are typical for any construction project: it's just taking longer than expected. First, the city water department repaired leaks in the water main and leaks in the sewer itself. It ran a little long. We had rain days that also put us behind. Then we had Inland Waters Pollution from Detroit work on improving the sewer by putting a fiberglass liner in it. This was going along well until their little robot, working to open the 24 leads into the sewer, got stuck in the pipes. This happened yesterday, and Inland worked through he night to fix this problem and get the leads all opened. All is well today. Mike Mancini from Redford Cement will finally be able to begin removing the cement next Tuesday. Jeff Klein from Classic Landscaping and Design should be able to begin getting the soil prepared the following Monday. One more thing:  half of our LED lighting is up and it looks great. 

A few pictures below show the work of the past few days.

The fiberglass sewer liner going into the sewer

 Inland worker heading into the sewer to open a lead. Claustrophobics need not apply.

He's got it!

Mid-May update

It's time for an update. I have to apologize for the lack of posts -- I was knocked down for a few weeks with a persistent virus that prevented me from getting out and doing some reporting. But my immune system has kicked back in, and I do have some information I can share.

In a sense, it's been a good time to be gone, because we have continued to deliberately slow the pace of work at the GG until we receive Brownfield accreditation. Once we receive accreditation, and are declared obsolete, we will move quickly to finish the building by early fall. The good news is that we have 2 Brownfield meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks, one with a sub-committee of the City Council (on May 20th), and one with the entire City Council (May 25th), which should be the end of the process. 

Just because the Brownfield has kept us from full-tilt construction doesn't mean that we haven't been busy. We have completed all of our detail design work except for the PV panels (that will help provide electricity), and that work will be done next Friday.

We are also big into materials sourcing right now. Kirsten Lyons is working with Joe Gallagher to find what we need. Our goal is for 50% of the new materials we need to bring into the building to come from the U S waste stream. Kirsten was over at Architectural Salvage Warehouse this week with Tom, looking for internal doors. One thing we can tell you right now -- even though there is quite a bit of deconstruction happening in the city, accessing materials for reuse is still pretty hard. Not much is on Craigslist coming from the City of Detroit as far as materials are concerned. However, we have become friends with some people working in the construction industry who call us periodically when materials become available.

Another thing we are doing to reduce the number of materials we bring in is to look at what materials we have, then make a design, rather than vice-versa. For example, we're having Dormouse, a metal fabricating company, make our stairway out of our old steam pipes.

The Green Alley is moving full steam ahead. Water main leaks have been repaired, the sewer leaks have been repaired, and a new liner is almost completely in the sewer (will be completed Monday). Redford Cement, our excavation company, will start removing cement early this coming week. The sewer work took one week longer than expected, so we have adjusted the planting from Memorial Day weekend to the second week of June.

One last thing. Laurie Catey and Kirsten Lyons have been working for some weeks now on our application for rebates in the DTE Energy Savings (YES) program. This program offers rebates in 3 tiers, based on a 10%, 20% or 30% efficiency you will have when you add energy saving features to your home. We used their modeling tool and found that we were 80% more efficient. In other words, we are off the charts, or way too efficient. So the initial estimates found that we didn't qualify for a rebate because we're too efficient. Somehow Laurie and Kirsten figured out a way for us to participate, and I'll interview them this coming Friday and post their explanation for you to see.

I always like to post a picture, so here is one from the Art Center Community Garden Build on Saturday, which we participated in. 90-plus raised bed gardens!

Alley Update - Video

Here's a video update on the Green Alley project. Tom Brennan and Dan Scarsella talk about moving the alley project through the city, and how trash/recycling will work.

Plant Selections for the Green Alley

Here is a segment of the Green Alley, drawn by Woody Melcher, so you can see each part of the future walkway up close. The middle will be lined with sections of concrete and historic brick, surrounded by permeable pavers (open-weave concrete pavers that you plant ground cover in - strong enough for trucks, but able to drain water back into the ground), and all of this will be bordered by 3-ft and 5-ft garden beds.

We spent quite a bit of time this fall planning which plants will go into these beds. There's quite a bit of of room - the alley extends 220 ft - so we had an extensive palatte to work with. Our goal was 90% Michigan natives, and we have met that goal easily. The only plants that we currently know will not be native are the spring bulbs, and we're adding those simply because we love them. On the native side, the plants will range from flowers like bee balm and black-eyed Susans to shrubs like the bleeding heart and swamp rose to grasses and vines. The complete list is here.

In case you're wondering why we're so focused on natives, here's the story. Plants that are native to an area have developed root systems that match the climate they are accustomed to. So they require limited hand watering,  don't require special fertilization programs, and support the area's wildlife. And they come back every year! So when we plant our butterfly weed plants, we'll know that they have done well in Michigan for decades, if not centuries, and will not only provide a beautiful landscape for us to enjoy, but a home for our Michigan butterflies. We all win.

Green Alley Funding

We received good news this week about the funding of the Green Alley project. Sue Mosey of the UCCA called and told us that then final portion of the money, $20,000, has been allocated to us from the Americana Foundation. This joins $20,000 from the Kresge Foundation and $10,000 from DTE (for the lighting), and we are done! We are so grateful to these organizations for their generosity and for recognizing our project. We are also once again thankful to be working with Sue Mosey, who has been invaluable in connecting us with resources.

As an update to the progress on the alley, the survey is done and we are waiting for the architectural plans from architect Michael McClear. We'll be reviewing the plans next Wednesday, and then shoot them off to the DPW.

The alley as it currently stands is pictured above.

Green Alley Public Hearing

On Wednesday, May 13th, we met with the Detroit Historic Commission for a public hearing on the green alley. We had previously submitted the plans and had already learned that the commission members had approved the plan with no reservations. The purpose of this hearing was to finalize this agreement and to give a chance for Historic Commission members to make any comments. We were encouraged by the positive response.

Commissioner Wheeler wanted to recognize the fact that this would be Detroit's first green alley. Yes! We love being early adopters.

Commissioner Long talked about the fact that she had lived in Boston, where alleys were featured on the Historic Home Tour. She had also recently cut through the alley on her way to the Hillberry, and was excited about the possibility of a beautiful pathway for pedestrians to traverse.

Commissioner Anderson wondered how the alley would be maintained. Tom Brennan, owner of the Green Garage, said that we had a maintenance agreement with the UCCA (Wayne State's University Cultural Center Association), but that we would be maintaining the plants ourselves on a daily basis.

Where do we go now? We must submit more formal plans and have them stamped by the commission. In order to get more formal plans, we're starting with a survey, and then:

• survey plans to the architect (Michael McClear)
• architect plans to DPW
• plans on to Parks and Rec
• then to Engineering (City of Detroit)
• finally to Building and Safety (City of Detroit)

Building and Safety will issue a permit. We estimate this will be a 2-4 week process. Yes, I know, we're optimistic people. We'll let you know.

Alley Project Submitted

The green alley project has been submitted to the city. We're also on track to propose the idea to the Historic Commission in May. Tom describes the process.

Green Alley update

This past Thursday we met with Susan McBride of the Historic Commission to discuss where we've come with the plans for both the Green Garage and the alley. Because our building is designated an historic site, our construction will need to stay within the guidelines set forth by this organization. In other words, we can't do significant changes to the exterior without approval. For the most part, we're OK. We still have a couple of areas to hammer out, however, like solar panels on top of the building's addition - definitely not a historical element!

During our discussion of the alley, we were joined by Ashok Patel of Traffic Engineering for the city. Once again, we're in the ballpark - we just need to consider a couple of minor issues, and we should be good to go.

A couple of days later we began Earth day festivities with a clean up of a new North Cass Community Garden. Well, it's not really a garden yet - just an old unused lot that will be transformed into 60 vegetable garden plots. The lot is located at Willis and Second, just a block or so from the Green Garage. From 11-1 on Saturday morning, about 50 volunteers raked, pruned, bagged and rolled up the old fence. When it's done, this garden will house not only the 60 plots, but will provide participants with tools and water (some from a rain barrel). Not surprisingly, the plots sold out immediately. We are so excited about this wonderful garden located so close to us!

After a couple of hours of garden work, we convened to Motor City Brewing Works for the official groundbreaking ceremony for the alley and the garden. After introductions and thank yous from Sue Mosey of the UCCA, and a little explanation of the alley project from Tom Brennan, we talked with interested individuals who wanted details.

After things broke up, the Brennans, Bradleys and Carters went to the alley for one more groundbreaking, this time with the hard hats and the shovel!