Commercial Street green project blossoms with EPA grant

The EPA selected the north Springfield project, southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Bunt announced yesterday, and the agency will help develop a plan to redesign three C-Street buildings with an eye on Leadership in Energy and Design certification.

“Springfield has become a national leader in the use of brownfields grants to revitalize old commercial and industrial sites for modern uses,” Blunt said in a news release.

The properties are:

• Buz Brewery, 505 W. Commercial St., a microbrewery, which was the original site of a gas station and later an awning company;

• Juliette’s Day Spa, 233 E. Commercial St., the former site of Davis Appliance and a gas station in the 1930s; and

• The Commercial Club, 299 E. Commercial St., a historic community building where the Commercial Club of Springfield meets.

Funding will support rehabilitation of the buildings, possibly including materials recycling, green infrastructure design, energy efficiency, water conservation, renewable energy development and native landscaping, the release said.

“There are companies anxious to take the lead on this promising new technology – and now they’ll have the means to do just that,” said Olivia Hough, Springfield’s brownfields coordinator, in the release.