Six months after they graduated from the University of Vermont, Tad Cooke and Erick Crockenberg are still working on a senior project. Think of it as an epic “incomplete,” an extracurricular undertaking that has segued directly into millions of dollars of advanced graduate studies.
Their “project” is redevelopment of Burlington’s vacant, six-story, PCB-laced Moran plant, a red-brick and steel environmental mess that stands as the last remnant of the Queen city’s former industrial waterfront on scenic, 121-mile long Lake Champlain. As the leaves turn this fall, Cooke and Crockenberg are leading an effort to turn the derelict landmark into a national example of “ecological adaptive reuse.” If they make the grade, it will transform the Queen City’s waterfront and leave the two longtime best buds and sons of Charlotte, Vt., with a remarkable legacy.
Neither of the hyperkinetic duo ever imagined this is where their self-designed major in ecological design at UVM would take them.
“It’s still hard to believe how it all spiraled out of control,” says Crockenberg, who along with Cooke, was unexpectedly launched into the complex world of redevelopment with a bit of mental fireworks that occurred, appropriately enough, on the Fourth of July in 2012.
After wandering downtown to Battery Park overlooking the lake following a thunderstorm, they were staring down at the plant as the sun burst out when the “stereotypical lightbulb” went on. They had heard “rumblings” of an effort to enhance the downtown and waterfront, and Cooke recalls one of them – he’s not sure who – saying, “I don't see why we can’t make something happen here.” A week later Crockenberg emailed new Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger to ask how to get involved, beginning the duo’s unlikely and extended journey as student redevelopers.
By late fall of 2013, thanks to around $20,000 raised with a Kickstarter campaign, their proposal reimagining the 1953 coal-fired plant came out on top of 29 other ideas, and then eventually won out over five finalists in a citywide competition. When Burlington voters backed their innovative vision in a vote in March 2014, making available $6.3 million, Crockenberg and Cooke found themselves doing a post-graduate thesis in bricks, concrete and rusted steel, even as they were still finishing senior year.
Today, the two grads are working feverishly, with a host of notable backers, to arrange $34.5 million in financing to make the project happen. That amount is $9 million more than originally proposed, but includes enhancements designed to “add substantial value and long-term viability” according to a September update from New Moran, the non-profit created to oversee the project.
“It’s going well, we have great interest from some really incredible people,” says Cooke, who works with Crockenberg out of a small studio office on Pine Street in the South End.
The shorthand pitch they came up with for New Moran in seeking $11 million in philanthropic monies as part of the financing, is “abandoned coal plant to net-zero community jewel.” Translated into bricks and girders, that means a nano-brewery, greenhouse, restaurant and cafe, an arts venue for 1,500 and creative entrepreneurial spaces for artists and techies, topped by a rooftop vantage for lakeside sunsets framed by the distant Adirondacks. The nonprofit would be self-sustaining after redevelopment and provide an estimated annual economic impact of $15.4 million.
Their multi-faceted mashup is tinted deep green: The design includes a geothermal-and-solar power system that produces more energy than the building needs, turning a former smoke-belching behemoth that last produced power in 1986 into a showcase of life after coal.
“What a chance to highlight some of these things. It’s such an iconic building,” says Cooke.
The surrounding landscape would become roughly two-acres of public community park ground, complementing the thriving waterfront.
The pair have tapped a broad array of local entrepreneurs and experts, using the extensive networking skills they learned at UVM designing their own interdisciplinary major. As students, Cooke says they knew what they didn’t know, which they turned to their advantage by bringing in the remarkable expertise at UVM and in the region. “We were coming to it with nothing to lose,” says Cooke, which made it easy to shoot for the moon.
Cooke says their transformation from students to green-visioned entrepreneurs draws both from their country upbringing and deeply felt environmental values. After graduating from Champlain Valley Union High School, the pair went out west to ski all over, living out of the back of their Subaru.
When they returned, they both entered the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. “We got through the first semester of that year and both realized independently that it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for,” says Crockenberg. When they learned that UVM lets self-directed students come up with their own inter-disciplinary curriculum, they jumped at the chance. Cooke says the fact UVM gave them the freedom to design their own study, which they developed within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was “immensely” important in developing the skills and vision for the Moran undertaking.
Ironically, they gained time to work on Moran because of the failure of a research project using composting heat to warm greenhouses (a cold snap and a bad batch of compost short-circuited the project). But the project had taught them how to tap into the extensive expertise in the UVM “ecosystem,” as Cooke calls it, tying together business and sustainable agriculture, community development and renewable energy – all disciplines that proved critical when it came time to re-envision Moran.
Cooke adds that the fact the pair had to “justify ourselves” throughout their major prepared them for the public vetting process and developed the skills they needed to convince heavy-weight backers to bring their expertise on board, such as local redeveloper Charlie Tipper, Smith-Buckley Architects and UVM grad Jeffry Glassberg, who specializes in finance and redevelopment.
Several UVM professors were instrumental in their success, among them architect Elizabeth Calabrese, who teaches green design “and became a good friend and is still adviser to our project”; Cairn G. Cross of Fresh Tracks Capital (“We’ve gotten our money’s worth, quips Cooke) and former professor John Todd, a pioneer in ecological design and engineering.
If all goes well, the “largest net-zero retrofit in the world” will be holding an open house in 2016. Then Cooke and Crockenberg can finally say their senior project is done.