Michael Shaw, Sacramento Business Journal

Eight years in the making, the greenest industrial building in the region is rising in Roseville after an arduous journey for its developer, a first-timer with a passion for trees.

Kevin Kemper is equally animated about the features he’s incorporated — such as natural lighting ample enough to eliminate the need for lights during the day — as he is about the downside of being a pioneer in green development. Kemper views the project as much a cautionary tale as a success, owing to the time and sweat he’s poured into it.

“What has taken so many years for a building to get this far is an extremely dysfunctional and bureaucratic building approval process,” he said. “This building is very different from anything that anyone in the area has done. They didn’t know what to do with it.”

The 21,000-square-foot building, at 501 Derek Place, is expected to be completed in June. Kemper hopes to lease a portion of it and says he’s “putting his money where his mouth is” by offering to pay the utility bill if the right tenant comes along.

The project is a reflection of Kemper himself, whose trade is tree management and maintenance. He’s the former owner of Kemper Tree Care, and though he still works there, he sold the company to his employees in 1999 as he embarked on the mission of building something unseen in Sacramento. The tree care company is planning to move into a portion of the building.

Few developers talk like Kemper, who’s liable to throw the word “gestalt” into casual conversation.

“In the years I have worked as an arborist, it developed in me a sensitivity to nature,” said Kemper, who’s also building homes in Colorado that are off the power grid. “I learned to read the body language of trees.”

He declined to be specific about the difficulties he faced getting his building off the ground, but said even his own engineers disappointed him by failing to properly estimate the potential energy savings.

Chris Robles, community development manager with the city of Roseville, admitted the project didn’t easily conform to the state-mandated building codes. But Robles said that delays were the result of a combination of factors, which also included Kemper’s inexperience and the differing views among Kemper’s own consultants.

“Clearly, he has been at it for some time,” Robles said. “I admire him for keeping true to his vision.”

Robles said the city continually evaluates its performance and will seek ways to improve.

Building a ‘teaching tool’

Despite the delays, Kemper was able to incorporate a slew of green features:

• Solar light tubes reflect sunlight into the building with much more luminosity than standard skylights, eliminating the need for electric lights.

• The structure is made from insulated concrete forms used commonly in extremely cold or hot climates, rather than tilt-up walls found in most industrial buildings. The insulation rating of those forms is two to four times better than the average home.

• It has a standard heating and cooling system as a backup, but Kemper predicts it won’t be needed. The sun warms water that circulates through tubes in the concrete floor, a five-level roof further insulates the indoor space, cool air is drawn inside at night and 6-foot overhangs keep the sun off the walls in the summer.

Kemper was able to keep costs lower by recycling materials, such as metal braces used to shape the concrete walls that are typically thrown out after construction. Instead, they are being incorporated inside the building. Aggregate from road demolition was recycled into base material for the parking lot.

“It’s almost like a teaching tool, what he has built,” said Dave Hornbeck, one of the brokers at Grubb & Ellis listing the building.

Hornbeck is very familiar with sustainable design; he was the first commercial broker in the Sacramento region to obtain accreditation under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program offered by the U.S. Green Building Council.

That achievement required passing a grueling three-hour test with 300 questions.

But LEED is a touchy subject for Kemper. He believes the building could achieve platinum certification, the top available, under the program. But he says it’s unlikely that he’ll seek to have it certified because the council has estimated the cost at $50,000 to $60,000.