Next Generation Is Going Up Son Helps Father Change Approach To Construction

On the outside, the two buildings will be identical, sitting like bookends of concrete and glass at the Cd’A Tech Center.

Inside, they will be as different as the two generations of construction philosophy behind them.

Between them, the buildings offer what could be the first test case in the Northwest for how developers can help save the Earth, one project at a time.

The experiment in this real-life laboratory pits youthful enthusiasm against pragmatic experience. Both sides stand to gain from the cultural tussle.

Stephen Meyer of Parkwood Business Properties credits his son, Chris, with inspiring a change in his approach to commercial development.

“Chris asked me, ‘How come we put up buildings like this?”’ Meyer said. “My best answer was, ‘That’s what we’ve always done.’

“What he’s shown us is that we can produce a building that leaves a gentler footprint than what others are building - or what we used to build.”

As a recent environmental science graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, Chris Meyer joined Parkwood to learn more about the family business and put his education to practical use.

Not long after that, he was giving his father a crash course in contemporary construction theory, selling him on the benefits of using recycled materials and minimizing energy consumption.

The second phase of the tech center was designed to exceed energy code requirements and make optimum use of daylight.

Ninety percent of the steel used in construction will come from recycled automobile chassis. The carpet fiber uses recycled pop bottles, and copper wiring in the electrical system also is from a recycled source.

The quality of materials is first-rate, Meyer noted, but the concept took some getting used to.

“My first reaction was, ‘Don’t tinker with a process that’s already pretty difficult,”’ he said. “The development game has plenty of wreckage along the way as it is.”

If some developers veered off or stalled in their investment attempts, Parkwood has stayed in the passing lane for 20 years.

In that time, the company built Ironwood Business Park, the Interlake Medical Building, Prairie Commerce Park and, recently, the Prairie Shopping Center.

At the Cd’A Tech Center, Parkwood developed a technological epicenter for what some believe will be an explosion of software and electronics firms in the region.

“There’s been all this talk about the University of Idaho research park, but Steve Meyer has already managed to create what naturally evolved into a technology trade center,” said Tony Paquin, president of the Idaho Technology Association. “Businesses just grew there and were attracted to each other.”

Apart from connecting the new building to GTE’s fiber optic communications loop, Meyer simply has constructed a shell, letting his high-tech tenants define their infrastructure needs from there.

“The pace of change is so elusive that you never know which way it’s going to go,” he said.

But Chris Meyer forced the company to commit for the long-term when it came to using the “sustainable building concepts” he studied in school in the second tech center building.

If the new direction pencils out, future Parkwood developments will do the same.

“We won’t know for a couple of years, but what we have here is two buildings that are almost identical in size, so we can measure our results,” Stephen Meyer said. “Month-by-month, suite-by-suite, we can compare things like electrical consumption and waste tonnage.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo