The Brock Environmental Center | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Environmental center and office space |
Location | Virginia Beach, Virginia |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 36°54′14″N76°05′52″W / 36.9039°N 76.0979°W |
Construction started | 2012 |
Completed | 2014 |
Cost | US$21 million [1] |
Owner | The Chesapeake Bay Foundation |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 1 |
Floor area | 10,000 sq ft (930 m2) |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | SmithGroupJJR |
Main contractor | Hourigan Construction |
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's (CBF) Brock Environmental Center is located on the banks of the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It is designed to meet the highest environmental standards in accordance with The U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and the Living Building Challenge. Home to CBF's Hampton Roads staff and local conservation group, Lynnhaven River NOW, the Brock Center will benefit the larger public with spaces indoors and out for community and student groups. [2]
Pleasure House Point is a 118-acre peninsula on the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Developers purchased the land and planned to build "Indigo Dunes," a development of more than 1,100 new high-rise condos and townhouses.[ citation needed ] When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the building plans came to a halt, and the bank foreclosed on the property. [3]
In 2012, The Chesapeake Bay Foundation partnered with the City of Virginia Beach, the Trust for Public Land, and the local community to buy Pleasure House Point for $13 million, preserving it for recreation and education. [4]
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation bought a small corner of the property to build the Brock Environmental Center. The building takes its name from Virginia Beach philanthropist Dollar Tree founder Macon Brock and his wife Joan. [1]
The Living Building Challenge is the highest standard of certification for energy efficient, environmentally smart design and construction. The Challenge is composed of seven performance categories called Petals: Place, Water, Energy, Health and Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. [5]
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation expects that the center will be LEED-Platinum certified and that it will meet the Living Building Challenge certification. This rare designation means the building has a net-zero impact on the environment even after a full year of operation. [6]
Rooftop photo-voltaic panels produce approximately 60 percent of the Brock Environmental Center’s energy needs. Two residential-scale 10-kilowatt wind turbines provide the additional 40 percent of energy. Geothermal wells are used to take advantage of the earth's constant 54-degree temperature by exchanging heat with a recirculated fluid that is sent down a closed loop located 300 feet below the surface after which the fluid sent back up to the surface to warm the building air in the winter and cool the building air in the summer before sent down the earth again. The treated air is circulate through the building with a high-efficiency HVAC. [6]
As a result of other energy efficient and conservation design elements, the building uses 80% less energy than a typical building its size. [2]
The building is positioned to receive maximum southern exposure for warmth and to receive natural ventilation from the prevailing winds. Exterior walls, floors, and roof insulation are designed to reduce energy demands by maximizing the building’s insulation.[ citation needed ]
Two 1,600-gallon (6,056-liter) rain cisterns and a filtering system make the Brock Environmental Center the first project in the United States to receive a commercial permit for drinking filtered rainwater. [7] [8] [9] The commercial permit was given in accordance with the federal drinking water requirements.
The toilets are composting waterless units that turn human waste into usable organic material. Rain gardens will capture and filter extra runoff, and a special graywater garden will cleanse graywater (wastewater generated from sinks and showers). [2]
To meet the Living Building Challenge, designers did not use any “Red List” materials that include chemicals and materials considered harmful to humans and the environment. Materials and chemicals listed on the Living Building Challenge’s Red List include polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and halogenated flame retardants, among others. [6]
The builders also worked with the community to use reclaimed and salvaged materials such as sinks, doors, mirrors, counters, cabinets, floor boards, used bike racks, student art tables, and old wood paneling. Supplies came from sources throughout the community including old office buildings, school houses, and a local parks department. [10]
The Brock Environmental Center is home base for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s outdoor field education program serving Hampton Roads students and teachers. According to CBF "Our courses combine many academic disciplines – earth science, biology, history, art, English/writing, math, chemistry, civics, economics, government, and responsible citizenship. As a result, students become exceptionally informed and inspired, valuing the bay and its watershed as a living, connected system." [1] Pleasure House Point is an active demonstration site for important and relevant restoration projects, including oyster, wetland, and other habitat restoration, as well as water quality improvement initiatives. [11] By engaging in outdoor educational experiences in natural areas and on waterways, program participants can better understand the Chesapeake Bay. [12]
The Brock Center contains a large conference room and smaller meeting spaces available for community meetings, discussions, and collaboration.[ citation needed ]
Menhaden, also known as mossbunker,bunker, and "the most important fish in the sea", are forage fish of the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, two genera of marine fish in the order Clupeiformes. Menhaden is a blend of poghaden and an Algonquian word akin to Narragansett munnawhatteaûg, derived from munnohquohteau, referring to their use of the fish as fertilizer. It is generally thought that Pilgrims were advised by Tisquantum to plant menhaden with their crops.
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states and all of Washington, D.C.
Virginia Beach, officially the City of Virginia Beach, is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Located on the southeastern coast of Virginia, it is the sixth-most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic and the 43rd-most populous city in the U.S. Located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia Beach is a principal city in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area which has more than 1.8 million inhabitants and is the 37th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S.
Hampton Roads is the name of a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean. It also gave its name to the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel is a 17.6-mile (28.3 km) bridge–tunnel that crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay between Delmarva and Hampton Roads in the U.S. state of Virginia. It opened in 1964, replacing ferries that had operated since the 1930s. A major project to dualize its bridges was completed in 1999, and in 2017 a similar project was started to dualize one of its tunnels.
Virginia Wesleyan University (VWU) is a private university in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The university is nonsectarian but historically affiliated with The United Methodist Church. It enrolls 1,607 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs, 355 students at LUJ/VWU Global (Japan), and 1,403 in VWU Online. Virginia Wesleyan transitioned from a college to a university in 2017.
County of Princess Anne is a former county in the British Colony of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States, first incorporated in 1691. The county was merged into the city of Virginia Beach on January 1, 1963, ceasing to exist.
Hampton Roads Transit (HRT), incorporated on October 1, 1999, began through the voluntary merger of PENTRAN on the Virginia Peninsula and TRT in South Hampton Roads and currently serves over 22 million annual passengers within its 369-square-mile (960 km2) service area around Hampton Roads. The purpose of the HRT is to provide reliable and efficient transportation service and facilities to the Hampton Roads community. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 7,263,900, or about 29,700 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
Pembroke Manor is an area in the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States located around the intersections of Virginia Beach Boulevard and Independence Boulevard. The community's name comes from Pembroke Manor, a plantation built in 1764. The house was donated by the Aragona family to the Princess Anne Historical Society, However, it is currently under private ownership and operates as Ivy League Academy, a private Christian school catering to children from K4 through 5th grades. It has since been sold and repurposed for another business. The building itself was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 as #70000887 and is considered one of the oldest and most notable structures in the City of Virginia Beach.
The Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach, Virginia connects the bay area to the Virginia Beach shore via Shore Drive — crossing the Lynnhaven Inlet at the mouth the Chesapeake Bay. The bridge lies approximately three miles from the southern terminus of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. The first bridge in the same location, a draw-bridge, had been constructed in 1928, replaced in 1958 by what are now the eastbound lanes of a dual span. Westbound lanes were constructed as a parallel span in 1967.
The Lynnhaven River is a tidal estuary located in the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, in the United States, and flows into the Chesapeake Bay west of Cape Henry at Lynnhaven Inlet, beyond which is Lynnhaven Roads. It has a small, developed watershed covering 64 square miles (170 km2), terminating at Lynnhaven Bay. It was once famous along the East Coast of the United States for its oysters, which declined through pollution and runoff. It is now being restored by the Lynnhaven River Now restoration project based out of the Brock Environmental Center. A proposed comprehensive project for ecosystem restoration of the Lynnhaven River Basin is currently under consideration by the United States Congress.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is a non-profit organization devoted to the restoration and protection of the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. It was founded in 1967 and has headquarters offices in Annapolis, Maryland. The foundation has field offices in Salisbury, Maryland; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; Norfolk, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
The Adam Keeling House is a historic house in Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States.
The history of Virginia Beach, Virginia, goes back to the Native Americans who lived in the area for thousands of years before the English colonists landed at Cape Henry in April 1607 and established their first permanent settlement at Jamestown a few weeks later. The Colonial Virginia period extended until 1776 and the American Revolution, and the area has been part of the Commonwealth of Virginia ever since.
Henry Town, Henry Towne, or Henries Towne was an early English colonial settlement near Cape Henry, the southern point and gateway to the Chesapeake Bay in the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, now in modern Virginia Beach, Virginia, on the East Coast of the United States. Archaeologist Floyd Painter of the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences originally excavated the site in 1955, but it was only conclusively determined to be Henry Town in 2007 by United States Army scientists reviewing the site's artifacts, and no primary source documents exist. It was located east of Norfolk, Virginia and north of Chesapeake and south of the Hampton Roads harbor at approximately 36°54′30″N76°7′20″W. The historical and archeological site is immediately north of U.S. Route 60 on what is now Lake Joyce, formerly an inlet connecting with Pleasure House Creek, a western branch of the Lynnhaven River, itself an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads.
The Philip Merrill Environmental Center is a Green building owned and operated by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Built in 2001, the Merrill Center is located in Annapolis, Maryland on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The building serves as the headquarters office building for the CBF, but is also available to rent for business and social occasions.
Lynnhaven is one of the seven original boroughs created when the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia was formed in 1963. It is located in the North Central portion of the city.
Virginia Beach, Virginia is a city that has become a popular tourist destination in recent years on account of its historical, scientific, and performing arts.
The Lynnhaven House, also Wishart–Boush House, Wishart House, and Boush House, which was built circa 1725, is an example of 18th century Tidewater Virginia vernacular architecture and is located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Although it was founded by the Thelaball family, it is sometimes referred to as the Boush House or the Wishart House. The house was given the name the Lynnhaven House due to its close proximity to the Lynnhaven River, which flows on the same property. Originally, the home, located at 4405 Wishart Road, stood on a 250-acre plantation. Now, it is located on five and a half acres.
A Living shoreline is a relatively new approach for addressing shoreline erosion and protecting marsh areas. Unlike traditional structures such as bulkheads or seawalls that worsen erosion, living shorelines incorporate as many natural elements as possible which create more effective buffers in absorbing wave energy and protecting against shoreline erosion. The process of creating a living shoreline is referred to as soft engineering, which utilizes techniques that incorporate ecological principles in shoreline stabilization. The natural materials used in the construction of living shorelines create and maintain valuable habitats. Structural and organic materials commonly used in the construction of living shorelines include sand, wetland plants, sand fill, oyster reefs, submerged aquatic vegetation, stones and coir fiber logs.