Downtown Cleveland gets taken over by a mall, which gets taken over by a farm.

Shopping malls haven’t shown any sign of slowing down in their rampant development since the first one opened near Kansas City, Mo., in 1922.  The economy, on the other hand, has shown woeful signs of slowing down to the extent that many retail centers are closing their doors due to the traumatic hit consumer confidence has taken in recent years.

Such was almost the case with the Galleria at Erieview in Cleveland, Ohio but it took the bright idea of Vicky Poole, their marketing and events director to do more than just drop the cost of rent.

I started, again, reevaluating the space and when this idea came for urban growing and I got, again, more involved in the local food movement, I realized that there was no reason why we couldn’t implement growing and still be a business center and an events center.  We could still remain a community and yet benefit from the plants and the local food.

Vicky says the businesses will take time to come back, just as the plants will take time to grow.  For now, the visibility and good feeling the greenhouse gives to the community is a solid foundation for a sustainable future.

For the full interview with Vicky Poole, click here.

Photo by T-FIZ.

Cleveland, OH – If every mall became an indoor farm, our broken food system might actually be mended.  That was just the thinking behind the retail culture jamming greenhouse at the Gallaria at Erieview devised by Vicky Poole.

Taking decorative greenery a step further, Vicky’s belief in fostering the local food movement galvanized her vision of reconditioning a dying mall into a vibrant eco village.  Interest from New York Sun Works to demo sustainable indoor modular farm systems much like those tested aboard their Science Barge are in talks.  The mall’s existing restaurants are buying the freshly grown produce and a new breed of vendor is moving in like vegan restaurants and dedicated salad bars.

GA: So Vicky, the way I understand it, you took a trip to New York and this is kind of how you got the idea for the greenhouse, am I correct?

VP: Well, no.  You’re not.  But that’s okay.  I read it in a magazine, I read it in Urban Land and it was about one of the places in your city, it was about the Science Barge.

GA: Such a cool project.

VP: Yeah, it sounds like a very cool project.  And I started reading about the Science Barge and once I looked up on the Science Barge, I started reading about New York Sun Works , what they were doing with their vertical growing.  And, so, contacted them and started discussions with them on how to bring their vertical integrated farm into the Gallaria because they had an article that was talking about what they were planning on doing with New York Sunworks.  I guess it was conceived by New York Sunworks.

So I looked at that window and I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s like duplicate of our food court window.”  Completely.  I mean it looks like our food court was in the magazine with plants, pretty much, so that’s what made me think of it, because I thought, “Oh my gosh, we could do that.”  So I think it started from that and then as I started investigating vertical growing, the local food movement, it started the whole process because our building is like a natural greenhouse located in the city.  We’re centrally located in downtown.

GA: Right in downtown Cleveland.  Describe the building a little bit if you would.  You’re right in front of the tower there but it’s kind of a domed structure covered in glass, is that right?

VP: It’s a glass atrium.  It was built in ‘87 and it was built as a two-story mall, two-floor mall, and I think it had about 48 I think stores at the time and was considered one of the elite properties in downtown in shopping.  And, I don’t know, New York hasn’t experienced what Cleveland experienced but our retail pretty much left the city in 2002, thereabouts.

GA: There are enough empty stores to know something happened here.  We’re not all immune to it, though we like to think we are here.  So, are you seeing retail actually start to return as a result of the greenhouse?

VP: Well, I think it’s going to bring the comeback, it hasn’t happened yet, but what it has brought is visibility to the building in a new light.  I think too often people live with a building such as this and instead of looking at what it can be, they look at what it was.  And as long as they’re looking at what it was, it’s a doom and gloom story.  So if you start looking at space, and you start thinking about what it could be, all of a sudden, new things start to happen and that’s what my job has been since I’ve been here.  I started an event business about 6 years ago, I installed a curtain in the food court and when you pull that it becomes a room-in-the-round and a beautiful event space and we started having weddings here and fundraisers and it’s become a very dynamic part of what we are.  After that, again, I started reevaluating the space and when this idea came for urban growing and I got, again, more involved in the local food movement, I said there wasn’t any reason we couldn’t implement growing in different ways so that we could grow local food in our building and still be a business center and an event center.  We can still remain a community and yet benefit from the plants and the local food.  We have enough restaurants that will buy the product and it’s a better message for them too.

The more you get involved in something like this, the more possibilities you see because you realize that recycling is important here, composting is important because if you can get the food scraps over to composting and then possibly bring it back for growing, you know, that’s a message.  As this has started to evolve, it has sparked the interest of other businesses wanting to become involved in it.  My big picture was an eco village where it would have renewable energy sources so that there are companies that have new products available and, in turn, bring new business.  Now, we’ve already attracted a salad bar and we have a vegan restaurant looking at the space now too.

GA: So it’s a slow build.

VP: It’s a slow build but it’s a build.  It’s better than being nothing.  Having this, “Well, we can’t bring retail,” and, “the businesses, where are we gonna find them,” it brings us a new beginning.

GA: Well it takes a long time to grow plants too so…

VP: The plants (aren’t) the only thing, it’s just like one small little part of it.  Again, education’s key.  And as the plants are growing and we’re looking at different ways in which you can present that, we’re looking at different hydroponics, we’re looking at recirculating systems, drip systems, ebb-and-flow systems, the fact that we can grow in compost so some of it would be dirt and hopefully we can get this vertical wall in here.  We are going to build a demonstration unit for vertical, certainly not as beautiful as New York Sun Works pieces.  I mean, theirs is built in double glass so that it’s actually moving and they have quite a set-up that they do.  I have talked with them and they are interested in bringing one of their demos here so we’re kind of hoping that that would happen, I can’t say that it will but we have been in discussions with them a little bit.

In looking at the education of how you can grow in the city, all the different methods that you could grow in the city, then you start to look at all the other parts of sustainability and what they mean in our life.  So then you get into water collection, you get into renewable energy mean, you get into recycling and all of that so it does become a bigger picture, a bigger message than just growing, than just being a farm.

Photos courtesy of New York Sun Works and the Gallaria at Erieview.

Are winter energy costs freezing you out?  Why not try some space heaters that actually save space and money?

It’s unfortunately all too common for most homes, whether in a hot or cold climate, to be improperly insulated against whatever weather conditions it faces.  This could mean thousands of dollars a year in energy costs not to mention the toll energy transmission and generation takes only to be wasted on the end user.

One solution, at least for those bracing against cold, is  selecting one of the new lines of electric space heaters available.  Here are a couple things to keep in mind when buying:

1.) Only go for newer model heaters up to date with all the current safety features which bare the UL stamp of approval.

-and-

2.) Choose a thermostatically controlled heater, as they avoid the energy waste of overheating a room.

One such model that fits these specs and was tested here at Green Air HQ is the Dayton U33 Electric Space Heater available at Air-n-Water.com.  It’s compact, thermostatically adjustable, and even electrostatically adjustable saving us from bank account busting winter heating costs.

For more specs on space heaters and ways to stay sustainably comfy, check out the following links.

Portable Heaters (United States Department of Energy)

Space Heaters: Reviews (ConsumerSearch.com)

Eco Heater: Good for chilly rooms and heating bills (GreenUpgrader.com)

Photo by oatmeal2000.

Video by Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness.

Full Green Building Law article here.

Green Air Filter:

A small yet potent architectural firm whose principals happen to be close friends and occasional business partners of mine, recently completed construction of a very green, very LEED residential townhouse project just down the way in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn (full article and interview is forthcoming).  The project began in 2006, weathered the nightmare market, ran up against DOB blockades thrown up by officials whom had no idea what evacuated tube solar hot water systems meant, and only in the past weeks has the developer been able to show off his dream to potential buyers.

As expressed so eloquently and succinctly by the author of this article, Shari Shapiro, Attorney and LEED AP, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission only just recently by way of what appears to be logical deduction and something that actually resembles reason concluded that companies might actually be encouraged to invest in green technologies as climate risk has been equated to a risk to shareholders.  The correlation between what the SEC has done and what my friends at Cycle Architects are doing is that with perseverance, good work, determination, and knowing what’s just, eventually, dreams do come true.

Photo by webjunkie80.