Members of Urban Land Institute’s Kansas City Young Leaders Group recently mingled, ate, drank and toured the new JE Dunn headquarters building downtown. Called a ”Projects & Pubs Tour,” the first stop after the contemporary lobby (below) was the main hallway (above) that’s dedicated to all past and present Dunn employees and boasts photos and descriptions of the firm’s accomplishments over the decades.
Below, Russ Pearson with Harbinger (right), Stan Meyers with Bartlett & West, Inc., and Jamie Clark with IronStone Bank, began their tour of the LEED Gold certified building that features an impressive curved glass front and wide open office areas.
JE Dunn worked with BNIM Architects and 360 Architecture on the design of the structure, which kept 95 percent of construction waste out of landfills; used efficient glazing, lighting, and heating and cooling systems to decrease energy use; and got 10 percent of building materials from within 500 miles of Kansas City. The building uses 54 percent less water than minimum standards.
Vanessa Spartan with Gould Evans, Bill Bergmann with Butler, Rosenbury & Partners, Tim Underwood with Olathe, and Todd Posson with BHC Rhodes took a look at a wall in the building’s foyer that gives a time line of Dunn’s projects and technology.
Linda Childress and Michael Nguyen with Ironstone Bank enjoyed the tour. They said their business these days is mostly working with small- and medium-sized businesses.
Gould Evans landscape architect develops tree list for the Midwest
Gould Evans Landscape Architect Robert Whitman has a passion for trees; more specifically trees most appropriate to the Midwest. His 15-year career at Gould Evans, volunteer efforts with the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, and his own personal interest have all accumulated a signature interest for Midwest plantings and taught him the importance of not relying on what the typical “tree list” advises. So much so that he decided to develop his own list; free of bias and full of knowledge from a well-rounded selection of regional experts. He surveyed a group of nearly 20 arborists, educators and horticulturalists in the area, asking each to rank more than 375 tree species and cultivars based on their landscape value, street tree value, cultural adaptability value and the tree’s useful lifespan.
“I wanted to create a list that was meaningful for everyone, from the average homeowner to an experienced landscape designer, anyone looking for a resource to help them find the best tree for their unique needs,” Whitman said. “So many times we see the wrong trees planted in the wrong areas because someone relied upon a list distributed by an organization looking to fulfill their own needs or sales quotas. The ‘Great Trees for the Kansas City Region’ list takes away all of that bias and serves as a guide for beautifying our region based on solid research and the well-educated and experienced opinions of experts.” Michael W. Dougherty, Urban Forestry Consultant with Tree Management Company, said, “This list is a tremendous guideline and resource for people to make good long-term tree selections and to learn about a few great trees they may be unfamiliar with. What might be the most important information gleaned from this list is seeing what commonly planted trees did not make the list because of low expert ratings. Tree buyers need to find out why those trees were rated so low and limit planting them.”
Whitman’s top 10 picks out of 218 trees? They’re white oak, swamp white oak, caddo sugar maple, Kentucky coffeetree, Pacific Sunset Maple, John Pair Caddo Maple, Autumn Gold Ginkgo, Fall Fiesta Sugar Maple, Bur Oak and Chinkkapin Oak. To download the entire list, go to www.gouldevans and click on “Planning/Landscape Architecture.”
This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 12:20 am and is filed under Kansas City Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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