MNN - Mother Nature Network

The last I checked in with the Presidio, San Francisco’s sprawling, historic military base turned stunning National Park — complete with dense forests, beaches, restaurants, museums, an environmental learning center, and more — was last November when I featured ZETA Communities’ super-efficient Seed & Plant Lab at the Presidio Stewardship Center. As mentioned in that post, the Presidio is unique in that, unlike most large, urban parks, you can actually live (or work) there in both historic and non-historic residences scattered about 21 unique neighborhoods that give the park a self-contained city-within-a-city vibe. 

 

Now, the residential scene within the Presidio has gotten a whole lot more green with the announcement that the Belles Townhomes, the park’s only new constructed residential building, has received LEED Platinum certification making it the first multifamily residential building project in San Francisco to receive that honor. The project is also GreenPoint Rated with a score of 158.

 

Designed by 2010 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award-winning Kieran Timberlake for green prefab powerhouse LivingHomes (it’s the firm’s ninth LEED Platinum project) and developed by Forest City in partnership with the Presidio Trust, the Belles Townhomes community consists of seven attached three-story townhouse rentals. Each of the 3-bedroom, 3-bath units are between 1,655 and 1,687 square-feet with ground-level patios and private roof decks that overlook a shared green and wooded area. Although not prefab, the structure was site-built to meet LivingHomes Z6 Environmental Goals: zero energy, zero water, zero indoor emissions, zero waste, zero carbon, and zero ignorance.

 

Proclaims LivingHomes CEO Steve Glenn in an official release: 

 

 

The Belles Townhomes — which, by the way, are adjacent to the massive Presidio Landmark adaptive re-use project in the south end of the park — will be available for leasing later this fall.

 

For more gorgeous, deep green LivingHomes projects, check out my posts on the LivingHome Newport Beach and the LivingHome Santa Monica House which has the honors of being the first LEED Platinum home in the U.S. Also, be sure to head on over to the LivingHomes blog to get the latest news of the firm’s next multifamily venture, a Ray Kappe-designed project in Los Altos, California.