Green Condos in St. Johns - Is “Sustainable” Just a Selling Word?
Posted By Kyley
«Do these photos to the left look familiar? If you have spent anytime looking at real estate, and particularly condos, on Craigslist then I’m sure they do. [link].
It seems to be listed every other day, with the lowend price going down every week. I believe since I started recognizing this listing, the price of this specific condoplex’s one bedroom in St. Johns has fallen nearly $20,000. As of today, a query for “green” on Portland’s Craigslist only yields massive amounts of listing, one of them being the aforementioned condo. It’s title reads $169950 new modern condominiums, sustainable, green, hip, fun and the body reads “built using sustainable practices”.
What this really made me think about is the definition of sustainable design. Is there some sort of material and structural design ratio applied and anything that crosses a certain “green” threshold can be appropriately labeled “sustainable”?
According to the American Society of Interior Designers green primer, they have defined green/sustainable design as having 6 key elements. (It’s typo’ed on their site as having seven, silly dorks.)
(1) Promote health and productivity
(2) Built at market rate with lower cost of operation
(3) Conserves energy/fossil fuels with a lower rate of pollution
(4) Uses less water
(5) Reduces impact on both developed & undeveloped land
(6) Using minimal materials with the high level of environmental friendliness.
[link to source]
So that seems fairly cut and dry. The Craigslistings would appear at a glance to meet that criteria. But what happens when sustainablility is turned into a power seller word? Obviously the Matthew Frank Condominiums in St. Johns are using it as a heavy selling point. As the Portland real estate market starts to shit out, will sellers started claiming green design just because a home has reclaimed wood flooring in the living room and a low volume toilet?
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3 Responses to “Green Condos in St. Johns - Is “Sustainable” Just a Selling Word?”
1 Jaime 3 November 2006 @ 5:36 pm
Nice post, Kyle. I’ve often wondered about those condos too, since they are close to where i live/work. I’m a bit fearful that the terms “green” and “sustainable” are becoming trendy.
2 paul 19 December 2006 @ 8:04 pm
I’m not concerned w/ green and sustainable becoming trendy. If it means more people having access to a movement that has largely been elitist then I think it’s great. Let it be trendy. Continue building green. Yes, the word green and sustainable should not be allowed to be redefined in but at the same time it should be embraced and supported and not continually being met w/ skepticism.
3 John 17 January 2007 @ 10:32 am
Since the developers of the Matthew Frank made a huge investment in green/sustainable practices and materials, wouldn’t you expect them to try to capitalize on them in their marketing? Until buyers are willing to pay more for the increased costs of sustainable construction, few if any builders will eat the costs. We should be glad that “green” and “sustainable” are starting to be marketing words.
Also, I was up there (St. Johns) and I don’t notice prices going down…They only have a few units left and the prices have gone up 20-30 percent in the past 6-8 months. N. Portland is really the only area in town where the market has not slowed. There is only a 2-3 month supply of houses up there compared to 5-6 months everywhere else.
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