To RSVP or learn more about Greenways for Nashville, please contact Sherry Walker.

Continue reading below or click here to go to the Tennessean.

Continue reading below or click here to go the the City Paper.

For the second straight year, Chief Executive magazine named Tennessee the fourth best state for business.

For all eight years the magazine has produced the list, the first and last place states — Texas and California respectively — have remained unchanged. Other states in the top five were Florida, North Carolina and Indiana.

The list was based on the responses of 650 CEOs, who graded states in which they do business based on tax and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment.

“Recently moved from New York state to Tennessee,” an unnamed CEO is quoted as saying. “Differences in ambience/climate/cost of living/attitude of government towards business are outstanding!”

In a recent interview with the City Paper, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said that he has heard businesses looking to relocate to Tennessee express concern about controversial social legislation proposed at the state level but that it didn’t ultimately keep them from making the move.

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(article from Nashville Post)

Ground is slated to be broken in early May on The Chesterfield, a 43-home “cottage style” development Core Development Services will undertake in the Hillsboro-West End district.

To be located at 511 Chesterfield — on the 2.8-acre site of the former Blair House Apartments — the homes will range in price from $300,000 to $420,000 and in size from 1,450 square feet to 2,050 square feet, according to Core principal Mark Deutschmann. Each house will offer a two-car garage, he added.

Village Real Estate Services, for which Deutschmann is founder and owner, will handle sales and marketing of the homes.

“It’s a fantastic location for this type product,” Deutschmann said. “My agents seem to be extremely excited.”

Core created 511 Chesterfield Partnership to develop the site, for which it paid $2.2 million in January. The team, comprised of Deutschmann, Aaron White, Hunter Connelly and Core Construction Services’ Cory Short, has enlisted the following to handle the undertaking: DA|AD (architecture and design), J2k Builders (Jim McLean), Wamble and Associates (civil engineering), Greenspace (landscape architecture) and Franklin Synergy Bank (financing).

The Chesterfield, estimated build-out for which is $12.5 million, represents Core’s fourth cottage-style single-family home development within Nashville’s urban core, following West End Station, Germantown Station and the still-under-construction Gale Park. Core has worked with DA|AD on each.

“Nick Dryden (a co-principal at DA|AD with John Abernathy) has come up with some nice designs, and we’ll have a great selection of homes with plenty of variation to suit,” Deutschmann said. “ We’ll continue the concept of the internal greens, lots of porches and balconies. This site has fantastic sunset views, so we’ll try to take advantage.”

Deutschmann noted Elmington Park, West End Middle School and Eakin Elementary School are all within walking distance of the site.

“It would seem like the community is excited about this project,” he said. “At least I’m hearing good feedback. I think that the style, pricing, access to local schools and energy smarts are being well received.”

Core, which currently is building Midtown Place and will soon start on an unnamed three-story, 15-unit apartment building to be located at Magnolia Boulevard and Wedgewood Avenue, is aiming to deliver the first homes by the end of the year.

Nance Place, on Rolling Mill Hill overlooking the Cumberland and Downtown, is the first multi-family development in Tennessee to achieve Platinum LEED certification. It was developed by MDHA.

When it comes to new houses, green is the new granite.

A decade or more ago, luxury amenities such as granite countertops in kitchens and baths became “must-have” necessities. Now green building practices that once seemed exotic are becoming standard in homes at every price.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville, for example, will build at least 40 houses this year. All of them will be LEED certified, meaning they meet the highest standards for sustainability and energy efficiency. So are the new, affordably priced apartments built by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) in downtown’s newest neighborhood, Rolling Mill Hill. Meanwhile, every one of the $500,000 to $2 million custom homes built by Castle Homes is green, too.

The reasons are simple. Green construction practices reduce energy consumption and help save the planet. They also increase the value of a home and slash monthly utility bills.

“As gas prices approach $4 or even $5 a gallon, people say (homes) need to be more efficient,” says Alan Looney, Castle’s president. Castle builds all of its homes to specificationss set by the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Energy Star program, the National Association of Home Builders or the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards.

Middle Tennessee has embraced green building practices, and Nashville is home to the South’s first LEED-certified neighborhood, the Gulch, where luxury condominiums in the Terrazzo building are LEED certified and Pine Street Flats, the luxury apartment building under construction nearby, is also being built to LEED standards.

The city will soon have its first Energy Star certified-neighborhood, says Village Real Estate Realtor Mark Deutschmann. Planned for East Nashville’s Rosebank neighborhood, the Nouvell development will feature 15 LEED-certified single-family homes with soaring ceilings, low-e windows and radiant roofs. It also will include a community green space and a system to capture rainwater.

Homes will be built by Woodland Street Partners and have prices ranging from $224,900 to $269,900.

“We’ve seen one-offs” of individual LEED houses being built, “but not a whole subdivision,” Deutschmann says.

So, how green is Middle Tennessee’s home building industry? Mark West is a principal with Exoterra Architecture + Sustainability Consulting and a committee member of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). He estimates that one-third of the residences being built here are certified by the USGBC or another organization.

Going green can add several thousand dollars to the price of a home, he says, but many home owners are convinced it’s worth the price. A green house is not only more energy efficient and healthier to live in, it’s built better than an ordinary house.

“There’s an increased sale value. Green is worth more,” West says. “If people are given an option – can I have quality, a well-built, efficient home or granite countertops and a house that doesn’t perform as well – we’re seeing the growth of efficiency.”

What does it take for a home to be green, whether it’s certified or not? Gale Park, a Village Real Estate development in the 12South-Melrose district, has green features that include cellulose insulation, radiant-barrier roofs to keep interiors cool, double-glazed low-e windows, compact fluorescent lights and Energy Star Appliances.

Earlier developments marketed by Village, Germantown Station and West End Station, have similar green elements, as do many homes throughout Middle Tennessee that haven’t necessarily gone through the process of becoming certified. There are a number of certification programs to choose from, including the Department of Energy’s Energy Star, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, EarthCraft, which certifies homes in the Southeastern United States, and the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) program.

All of them take time and money that some home buyers would rather not spend just for the satisfaction of being certified. It’s enough for them to know that their home meets the standard, even if they don’t have documentation.

“They just want to know they’re getting a good home,” says Castle’s Looney.

Gateway Village in Murfreesboro contains 62 condominiums with office and retail space on the ground floor. The development is on track to become Rutherford County’s first LEED-certified mixed use project. Don’t let the blue water in the tiolets there startle you.

Castle’s green elements include “dual fuel” gas and electric heating. The system uses the most efficient fuel for the current temperature. Castle’s homes also have tankless water heaters, foam and cellulose insulation, low-e windows and other energy efficient features. The majority the homes built by Castle are certified by the NAHB or Energy Star.

Danny Herron, CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville, says building to LEED standards adds $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of building each of the organization’s 1,200-square-foot houses. That cost is covered by grants and does not add to the buyer’s cost.

Despite the cost, green construction is a good investment, he says. The houses are more structurally sound than ordinary houses and have higher quality roofs and heating and air-conditioning systems. And the houses pay a dividend each month with lower electricity bills. Habitat house owners pay an average of just $80.

“An extra $50 off the power bill can really help,” says Herron.

The savings add up. Over the 30-year period of their mortgage, each Habitat home owner will save more than $25,000 in utility costs, says Ralph Knauss, the organization’s chief operating officer.

For the past 20 years, American businesses and families have saved nearly $230 billion on utility bills and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to more than 350 million vehicles with the assistance of the Energy Star program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures show.

The EPA recently gave Nashville’s Habitat program its Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award for the third year in a row in recognition of the chapter’s continued leadership in protecting the environment through energy efficiency. Habitat has built 86 Energy Star homes in the past two years.

Most recipients of the award are large businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, not nonprofits, Herron says.

Residents of Nance Place, the LEED-certified affordable apartments developed in Rolling Mill Hills by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, also benefit from better construction and lower bills for electricity and water.

“It’s good for them and, we think, good for us,” says Phil Ryan, MDHA’s executive director.

Nance Place is the first multi-family development in Tennessee to achieve Platinum LEED designation, the highest level of certification.

“We’re extremely proud of Nance Place,” Ryan says. “It’s a beautiful and energy efficient apartment community in downtown Nashville priced for people starting careers or perhaps winding down a career.”

Nance Place features 109 one- to three-bedroom apartments, as well as studios, for renters earning 60 percent or less of the local median income. They feature environmentally friendly carpet, flooring, tile and wood, cabinets made with recycled content, Energy Star appliances and efficient lighting.

The building also features a white “cool roof” to reflect summer heat and a courtyard with a rainwater collection and treatment for its drought-resistant plants.

A casual observer might not see the featurtes that make a residence green. At Gateway Village in Murfreesboro, at least one feature is impossible to miss: blue water in the toilets.

The development of 62 condominiums with office and retail space on the ground floor is on track to become Rutherford County’s first LEED-certified mixed use project, says developer Joe Swanson Jr., chief manager of the Swanson Cos.

What does blue water have to do with green construction? Murfreesboro requires developers to use reclaimed waste water for irrigation. Gateway took that a step further and uses reclaimed water for toilet flushing. The water is dyed blue.

Like Nance Place, Gateway has a white roof that reflects the sun’s heat and reduces energy consumption.

“It reduces the ‘heat island’ effect that increases air-conditioning use and smog production,” says the Green Building Council’s West.

Gateway’s other green features include:

Recharging stations for electric vehicles. Motorists can swipe their credit card, just like in a store, to pay for a charge.

Reserved parking spaces for vehicles that get 38 mpg or more.

Permeable parking lot pavers that let water soak through them. There is no runoff into storm drains. The pavers are colored a light shade to reflect the sun’s heat.

Recycling stations are placed throughout the development.

There are carbon monoxide detectors in each condo. If there is a crowd in a condo – during a party, for example – an air circulator automatically brings in fresh air.

All of the lights are either energy-saving LEDs or compact fluorescents

Almost all construction materials have recycled content. The concrete, for example, contains fly ash from coal-fired power plants.

To encourage commercial tenants to commute by bicycle or exercise during their lunch hour, Gateway has shower facilities available.

Like granite countertops, green features can be expensive, says Swanson. The permeable pavers cost more than $120,000, for example. But the result is lower day-to-day operating costs and less impact on the environment.

Swanson believes everyone will soon be building and buying green houses, even if they don’t realize it.

“The federal government will continue to squeeze the (building) code so in 10 years we’ll all build to LEED (standards),” says Swanson. “We’ll be building green and not know it.”

To learn more about Nashville Earth Day Festival 2012 or to learn about ways to get involved, check out their website!

Nashville home sales were up 17.3% this March compared to just one year ago!  According to the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, 1,963 homes were sold in and around the Nashville area this March, up from 1,673 homes last year. Median home prices are also up!

Continue reading the full article below or click here to go the Nashville Business Journal.

Nashville-area homes sales increased by 17.3 percent in March compared to one year ago, the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors announced today.

According to GNAR, 1,963 homes were sold in the Nashville area in March, up from 1,673 one year ago.

During the first quarter, 4,855 homes were sold, a 24.2 percent jump from the same period last year.

"The increase in the residential median price is also a welcome sign," said GNAR President Kendra Cooke. "Our expectation is that the positive trends will continue as we move into the spring and summer months. Though there are still significant economic challenges, it is clear that the Greater Nashville and Middle Tennessee real estate market is stabilizing and strengthening."

In March, homes sold for an average of $168,500, up from $165,500 a year ago. Condos sold for an average of $135,000 down from $143,000 a year ago.

There were 2,239 sales pending at the end of the month, up from 1,910 a year ago. Homes sold in March had been on the market for an average of 92 days.

Inventory at the end of March stood at 18,984 homes, lots and condo units, down from 21,647 a year ago.

"Inventory is down from last year, but up slightly from last month," Cooke said. "With the traditional home-buying season underway, it is expected that more homes are becoming available. Right now there is fewer than 10 months of inventory overall. For single-family residential there is fewer than eight months of inventory available. It is good that more people are beginning to consider selling their homes, as the number of buyers is clearly increasing."

Continue reading the full article below or click here to go to the tennessean.com.