Shuttered Florida development gets new life as mega-green rental community

Like many residential developments planned prior to the housing collapse, Seabourn Cove in Boynton Beach, Fla., was not immune to the ills of the economy. Originally planned as a community of luxury condominiums, the project was shelved in 2008 when the for-sale market tanked in South Florida.

But instead of playing the wait-and-see game with the market, Seabourn Cove’s developers — Charles Funk, Rick Lococo, and Jeff Meehan — made a bold move and remade the condo development into a mega green rental community. The developers are aiming to have the entire 23-acre, 456-home rental community gold-level certified through the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) ICC 700-2008 by the NAHB Research Center. If they achieve their goal, Seabourn Cove would be the largest NGBS gold-level multi-family community in the nation.

To help make this happen, the developers are allocating resources from a 10-year series of property-tax rebates from the city for retooling the community to incorporate cutting-edge green technologies. They include:
• An exfiltration system that retains all stormwater on-site
• High-speed electric-vehicle charging stations in each garage of the community’s 300 townhouses, in addition to two shared charging stations for the remaining units
• Pervious concrete in select parking spaces
• Energy Star-qualified solar roof vents
• Impact-rated, double-pane, low-e 366 argon-filled windows
• Energy Star-rated appliances
• High-efficiency HVAC systems (16 SEER)
• Programmable thermostats
• Enhanced insulation in the roof and walls.

As a result, the rental units are expected to achieve a 30-40 percent reduction in individual residential energy bills, and an estimated 25 percent reduction in water bills.

The apartment homes will range from one-bedroom, one-bath apartments with 888 square feet of living space to two- and three-bedroom townhomes (with 1.5 and 2.5 baths, respectively) providing 1,417 and 1,718 square feet of living space. The townhomes have one-car garages, and all other homes have covered parking.

For more on the project, click here.