I read an article recently about a very cool developer in the Seattle area. His company focuses on creating buildings and projects that are good for the environment and for the community:
Rogers’… 4-year-old company, Point 32, is developing one of the region’s highest-profile projects: the Bullitt Center, billed as the greenest office building on the planet.
The Capitol Hill project, which broke ground last month, has been designed to produce its own water, treat its own waste, and each year generate as much power as it uses.
“It really could change the nature of green building, nationally and locally,” Rogers says.
He acknowledges his career path hasn’t been a conventional one. But his background in conservation and the arts prepared him well for what he’s doing now, he says.
Rogers and his business partners, Chris Faul and Matt Kellogg, have been working with the owner, the environment-focused Bullitt Foundation, almost from the start. They helped find the site, design the six-story building, obtain permits and arrange construction financing.
Point 32 also recently completed the first project in which it has an ownership stake: a high-end, boutique live-work loft complex in South Lake Union called Art Stable, targeted at artists and art collectors.
The award-winning building’s most distinctive feature: a crane on the roof and enormous, hinged windows through which oversized art pieces can be lowered.
So what’s the thread that ties together Rogers’ eclectic career?
“I think it’s an interest in place-making,” he says.
Creating something that’s aesthetically appealing is part of that, he says, but there’s more:
“We’re interested in helping create places where people can come together naturally of their own accord, places that improve the physical and social fabric of the city, places that provide a greater benefit than just the physical structures.”
He’s already played a major role in creating one highly acclaimed place: the Seattle Art Museum‘s Olympic Sculpture Park. As SAM’s project manager, Rogers oversaw all facets of the $85 million park’s development — permits, financing, design, construction.
Mental Flowers 