Half-Moon building gets top 'green' honor

Company cited for healthy new office

When Half-Moon Outfitters employee Katherine Smith moved into the company's new, earth-friendly headquarters in North Charleston late last year, she marveled at the absence of paint fumes and other chemical odors in the building.

Unlike most new structures, "The building smelled like an open-air cabin," said Smith, a graphic designer for the local outdoor gear retailer.

Perhaps the outdoorsy scent came from the South Carolina-grown pine and cedar used in fixtures throughout the building.

Healthy working conditions and the use of local materials are just some of the factors that recently earned the Half-Moon project the highest rating available from a group that recognizes environmentally responsible, health-conscious building ventures.

After months of painstakingly documenting its "green" building practices, the company last week achieved platinum certification for its new corporate office and distribution center at 1084 E. Montague Ave. The rating came from the U.S. Green Building Council's voluntary Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

The project is the first in South Carolina to achieve LEED platinum status, the company said.

The venture gave Half-Moon an opportunity "to see just how efficient we could make a building, in order to roll it out to our stores," said owner Beezer Molten, whose company targets backpackers, hikers, kayakers and other outdoor-sports enthusiasts.

Founded in 1993, Half-Moon has five stores in South Carolina and Georgia, as well as a recently launched online shopping site. Local stores are in downtown Charleston and Mount Pleasant.

The company moved into the new distribution center in December, relocating from the northern part of the peninsula. The 9,600-square-foot building is in North Charleston's Park Circle area.

To create the new space, Half-Moon gutted a 1940s-era building that formerly housed a Piggly Wiggly supermarket and later a transmission shop.

Molten/Lamar architects of Columbia, owned by Molten's father, designed the space. DWG Inc. of Mount Pleasant was responsible for engineering, and Charleston-based Reavis-Comer Development handled construction.

During the building process, Half-Moon followed LEED's construction guidelines — using as many environmentally friendly practices and products as possible — with an eye to garnering the program's top rating, Molten said.

For starters, the company reused, donated or sold most of the building materials from the original structure, and combed the region for used fixtures. The solid cherry-wood cabinets in the building's break room came from a local resale shop, for instance, and the metal doors in a back room were salvaged from the old Piggly Wiggly butcher shop.

To let in as much natural light as possible, the building has plentiful windows, including two panels that open to let in fresh air.

The building also boasts solar panels, an energy-efficient heating and cooling system, paints free of unhealthy organic compounds and desk and countertop surfaces made of discarded sunflower husks.

Outside, two hulking black tanks collect rain water, which is used for irrigation and flushing toilets. The company buys its drinking water from the city.

The property is landscaped with local, drought-tolerant plants that will require no watering after the first year, and excess parking lot space was converted into a natural area that also will provide shade.

One of the project's biggest challenges was finding the appropriate, eco-friendly building materials, Molten said. He credited online search engine Google for helping him track down many of the products used.

The entrepreneur declined to divulge the project's total price tag, but estimated it cost about 25 percent more to build than conventional methods.

Those extra costs should be recouped in five to seven years, Molten said. In general, the building will be more energy-efficient than a traditional one and will provide a healthier and more productive workplace for employees, he said.

To help prove his point, the company is tracking how much energy the North Charleston site conserves compared to its existing stores. So far, the distribution center is easily outperforming the retail operations, he said.

Through May, powering the warehouse cost about 3 cents to 6 cents per square foot a month, or about $300 to $600. By comparison, the Mount Pleasant store — the company's worst-performing in terms of energy efficiency — cost about 31 cents per square foot, or about $3,100 a month.

Going forward, Molten said, Half-Moon will work to make existing buildings more efficient, and will build new stores to match the efficiency of the distribution center. The company likely will strive for LEED certification again on future projects, he said.

LEED is a multi-tiered, points-based rating system that is gaining momentum across the country. Over the past seven years, developers of almost 14,000 residential, commercial and government projects around the nation have applied to seek some level of certification from the Washington, D.C.-based Green Building Council. About 1,100 have seen the lengthy, sometimes cumbersome process through to completion.

Other area projects that have passed muster with the Green Building Council include the Just Fresh restaurant in Mount Pleasant's Seaside Farms, North Charleston Elementary School, the Edisto Beach State Park Education Center and the Noisette Co.'s renovation of a second-floor interior office space in North Charleston.

Reach Caroline Fossi at cfossi@postandcourier.com 937-5524.