(Editors note: This is the first of a series of articles that will feature  the 2008 ­Visionary Award finalists, which were announced in May by Sustainable Land Development International.)

Bonita Bay Group saw an opportunity in a stretch of agriculturally impacted shoreline along the Orange River in Southwest Florida, near Fort Myers. Located a half hour northeast of the development company’s first community, Bonita Bay, the corridor was an untapped amenity and ripe for a concept the company wanted to pursue, one that incorporated eco-restoration and a new building ethic.

The result is Verandah, an environmentally sensitive, sustainable community that spans more than 1,450 acres, of which nearly 1,000 acres have been set aside as open space. At full build-out it will accommodate an estimated 1,700 homes. Two golf courses and an amenity center, as well as a commercial area for shopping convenience are already in place.

“In Southwest Florida, everybody is focused on the Gulf of Mexico and the Bays, but this river is a great amenity and we just think that corridor has a lot of potential,” said Dennis Church, the firm’s vice president of planning and development.

The community’s neighborhoods include a diverse mix of housing products, from large and small, single-family homes to multi-family residences with a main amenity area called River Village, where residents can gather to socialize - all connected by a series of trails and sidewalks. There’s even a series of boardwalks that wind through some of the slough areas.

“For a long time, since Bonita Bay started (in 1983), we have been doing horizontal development in what people now call ‘sustainable’ or ‘green,’ as a matter of course,” he said. That work ranged from analyzing ecosystems and restoring the water management regime to installing dual water systems and clearing exotics and evasive species.

“The company has an environmental ethic. It’s one of our core values. It’s part of our brand,” he said. At Verandah, the developer decided to go vertical as well horizontal, applying sustainability concepts to homes.

Before the buzz
When planning began for Verandah in 1999, the company formed partnerships with experts in the field of sustainability at a time when the concepts of sustainability and green building were not yet at the level of public awareness that they are today.

“We’d monitor what was going in the market, the publications and what the next wave of buyers would be looking for,” he said. “You can’t just do what you did on the last project. You have to figure out what is the unique selling proposition for the next one and how to position it.”

There were concerns that the sustainable path the company wanted to take may not be attractive to enough buyers. If people were unwilling to spend more for an Energy Star light bulb that would last longer and use less electricity, would they pay the hundreds or thousands of dollars more for high-efficiency appliances, HVAC or air-filtration systems? It was considered a risk.

“Some buyers would rather have granite counter tops than the higher efficiency air conditioning equipment,” Church said. However, the company was committed to educate the public and its builders about the importance of green building. Sustainability was coming.

Dr. Pierce Jones, who founded the University of Florida Energy Extension Service’s “Build Green & Profit” program, was brought in to develop green guidelines for single-family homes that conserve water and electricity and improve indoor air quality.

“We worked with the University of Florida, which has a green training program for builders. We brought in their training people and all of our builders for a two-day, certificate workshop,” Church said. “The builders were exposed to green building and green development. That started to raise the bar.”

Dr. Jennifer Languell, a member of the Florida Green Building Coalition and president of a Southwest Florida business that specializes in helping businesses build green, was brought in as another consultant.

Florida Power & Light was approached for its input on energy issues. The Florida Yards & Neighborhoods program proposed common areas that use native landscaping and drought-tolerant plants that require less water while providing wildlife habitat.

The public was involved early. The developers researched the local history of the land and worked with county and local leaders to create a project that would blend in and be accepted by residents. Surveys and assessments were taken, which resulted in an 11-page “Green Commitments” document that outlined the steps the company would take, including responsible site development, conservation and green building.

Educated on the green building process, the homebuilders agreed that all single-family model homes would be built to the Florida Green Building Coalition standards and work to reduce the environmental impact of their homes. Some homes use up to 35 percent less energy than a home built to standard Florida building code. They conserve water and provide a healthier indoor environment by using materials that don’t off-gas potentially dangerous volatile organic compounds.

“We had one builder who put in a solar array on the roof. There are times he actually sells electricity back to the power company,” Church said.

Builders also participate in Florida Power & Light’s Build Smart program and use trees to provide shade – a move that reduces solar heat gain and energy demand by 40 percent.

Rather than go with the Mediterranean-themed architecture popular in Florida, designers chose traditional southern vernacular-style, which is related to the coastal architecture that is historic to southwest Florida. The design includes breeze-welcoming transom windows, French doors and porches, and deep roof overhangs to reduce solar heat gain and reliance on air conditioners.

Among the list of options, builders offer higher efficiency windows, tighter building shell, and air quality features.

“We are continuing to ask the builders to raise the bar in their buildings,” Church said. “A lot of that is driven by the builders. Let them - and ultimately the buyers - decide which features they want.”

Meanwhile, excess building materials during construction are handled by a local business which can recycle 90 percent of the waste that would otherwise go to a landfill.

Rather than burn organic debris after clearing land, it is chipped into mulch and composted and used as a soil amendment.

Xeriscaping principles also reduce the community’s reliance on irrigated water and have been incorporated into the landscaping around single-family model homes.

Habitat and eco-restoration
Verandah was designed to accommodate the natural features of its 1.75 miles of river corridor, much of which had been altered for farming. An extensive study of the eco-system was undertaken. The area’s agricultural roots reached back to the 1920s when much of it was citrus groves, hence the name, “Orange River.”

“They actually had small steam ships that ran up the river. There were packing houses on the property,” Church said. Later parcels of land were converted to pasture or to grow row crops.

“The clearing that they did is not something you can repair, but there were ditches and agricultural roads that bisected the natural flow way that ran through the property,” he said. “They were trying to get rid of water in the farming operation.”

Extensive work was done to re-establish the waterways which had been altered to move water quickly off of the site. The restoration of the more natural flow has resulted in the creation of an extensive series of lakes - corridors which promote wildlife diversity.

The design of the community also included 128 acres of foraging habitat for the wood stork and a designated gopher tortoise preserve. Watercraft are limited to non-motorized boats to protect manatees in the Orange River. Birdhouses designed for specific species have been installed throughout the community.

Approximately 1,000 acres of land has been set aside for natural preserve areas, parks, wetlands, lakes, golf course and a riverfront conservation buffer. Verandah has more than nine miles of walkways, paths and fitness trails.

Before the development, exotic and invasive species, such as Brazilian Pepper and Melaleuca had moved in.

“They take over all native plants because they grow faster and shade them out. So there were the exotics to remove,” Church said.

Preserving the existing stands of native trees was a goal. Planners spent hundreds of hours creating and altering the design of Verandah to accommodate existing sabal palms and live oaks, some of which were nearly 100 years old.

“I spent a lot of time personally out there, identifying what were the most beautiful parts of the community and which parts needed to be saved,” Church said. When a tree could not be implemented into the design, it was marked for relocation.

“Over a two-year process, we root pruned those trees and used them as signature landscape elements throughout the community,” he said.

The site for the River Village amenity center was chosen because it had the highest concentration of these very large oaks right on the Orange River. The design called for it to be the location of a clubhouse, which typically contains a restaurant, golf shop, locker rooms and fitness center.

“We broke that up into smaller, separate buildings, and with the base information of the tree surveys, we nestled those in among the oaks,” Church said. “We also put the parking in a natural open area.”

Public­ ­education
Key to the success of Bonita Bay Group and Verandah is the public awareness campaign on the value of sustainable housing and land development.

Bonita Bay Group and its public relations firm, Gravina Smith & Matte, used agency-produced newsletters; newspaper feature stories and Verandah’s community newsletter and website to convey the green message.

Positive press also advances the cause. From the official ceremony commemorating Verandah as Florida’s first Green Land Development to the relocation of hundreds of trees, the media was invited to document major environmental milestones in the community’s development, which were picked up by national publications.

The community has earned a number of local, state and national accolades for its attention to the environment and served as a case study at the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo as the first development in the country to receive third-party validation.

In early 2004, Verandah was recognized by Firewise Communities USA as one of the first communities nationally to take steps to reduce its wildfire threat. In 2006, it was named the Florida Association of Realtors Environmental (ENVY) Award winner for proving that development and nature can coexist.

In 2007, Verandah was named the Council for Sustainable Florida’s Best Practices winner in the green-building category; was recognized with the Florida Urban Forestry Council’s Trees Florida 2007 Award for its commitment to preserving trees, and received Project EverGreen’s national Because Green Matters Award for its commitment to green space.

“It’s a public relations tool. If we do something, we tout it. We get articles out about it. It helps us in getting entitlement permits on other projects,” Church said. “We can point to Verandah and the county commissioners and county staff can see what we’ve done and they can say, ‘These guys are doing the right thing.’”

The market place
When Verandah opened for sales in February 2003, it doubled its projections for the year, reaching 96 sales at a volume of more than $24 million. Sales the following year more than doubled at 202 generating $69 million; sales more than doubled again in 2005 at 412 and $164.5 million in revenues.

The national real estate market began to cool in 2006, yet Verandah still hit 85 sales at more than $40 million, and in 2007 reached 28 sales at $12 million.

In the first two months of 2008, sales at Verandah more than doubled the same time period a year ago, indicating a returning market – and the long-term viability and financial success of Verandah in a highly competitive arena.

“There was an oversupply of product out there. We’re slowly burning through that. Verandah is doing OK,” Church said, pointing out the importance of watching cash flow, protecting the quality of the brand and following through on commitments.

“It’s a tough market. We just have to work through it. There’s still a lot of baby boomers coming and Florida is still a great place to live,” he said. “Verandah’s a beautiful community and we’re positioned for the turnaround.” SLDT