The building that formerly housed Nate's Steak and Seafood near the corner of Horsetooth Road and College Avenue in south Fort Collins has sat empty for over two years. That's eons for commercial real estate and explains why owners of the Fort Collins Marketplace shopping center are happy to have a new tenant in that space. Chick-Fil-A is on the verge of taking over the lot but before it can build its own restaurant, Nate's must go.

Tearing down obsolete structures and hauling away their components have long been viewed as a construction expense. But in recent years, people have taken a new-fangled, old-school approach to deconstruction, dismantling and sorting through building materials for reuse and recycling.

Deconstruction is an important phase in green-building projects, especially for those scoring LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification points. It's not an entirely altruistic decision since certified projects reap competitive advantages, but deconstruction is hardly a no-brainer, because it takes longer to disassemble a building than to knock it over.

However, things are coming together for people wanting to take buildings apart. The sweeping interest in all things greened has developers and property managers weighing the values of deconstruction versus conventional demolition. Very recently, the Fort Collins-based National Center for Craftsmanship began employing a new financial mechanism that could make deconstruction a norm.



Quality craft education

The craftsmanship center is a nonprofit educational organization with a mission to further the practice of quality craft skills; director Neil Kaufman considers the center to be "a learning laboratory." The group trains local students and at-risk youth, and partners with more experienced contractor crews to share sustainable practices.

Deconstruction has evolved into a major educational arena for the center, since local developer Les Kaplan donated a row of houses in south Fort Collins to be taken apart and resold as recycled materials in early 2008.

Kaufman proudly boasts that the center runs "the most rigorous deconstruction program in the country." It even caught the attention of the producers of "Renovation Nation," a program on Planet Green, a Discovery Channel cable network. A film crew spent a day this past March shooting center-trained crews of students and contract workers deconstructing farm buildings on the Andrejeski property on Overland Trail in north Fort Collins. The city now owns the land and plans to protect it as open space. The coverage will be part of an episode filmed around Colorado, scheduled to air sometime this summer.

Kaufman says deconstruction taps into environmental, educational and economic sustainability (can you say "green jobs"?), but the economic advantages have always been the most tricky to cultivate. Deconstruction typically runs between 10 percent and 35 percent more than demolition in terms of upfront costs, according to Kaufman. The center's projects use crews of a skilled manager plus two to five trainees who have committed to 200 hours of service, and then additional volunteers.

Reuse and recycling of materials are measured in terms of volume or weight - the Andrejeski deconstruct diverted 78 percent of the original structures' volume from the landfill. The center then sells the reclaimed timbers, steel and other components through craigslist, garage sales and its mailing-list network. Unsold materials are donated to organizations such as ReSource or Habitat for Humanity.



Enterprise zone designation

All this is clearly more involved than a straightforward teardown and a trip to the landfill, which is why the center has sought out a major financial tool to make it worthwhile.

This January, the National Center for Craftsmanship earned designation through the Colorado Economic Development Board as an enterprise zone project. That means the center can exercise some new fiscal muscle - namely tax credits - when courting developers.

In the past, a property owner has donated buildings to the center as an in-kind contribution to fund its educational program, including the deconstruction. The owner claimed tax credits for the appraised salvage value of the structure, which might or might not make the project worthwhile, compared with a quick and cheap demolition. But since the craftsmanship center is a nonprofit entity, there are corporate tax breaks worth an additional 40 percent of the real value.

Now, there are even more attractive breaks for working with an enterprise zone project - tax credits worth 12.5 percent of the in-kind share and 25 percent of any cash donation. Removal of an unwanted building is no longer a cost to be added to construction financing; now, it's an asset to leverage tax breaks.

"The fact that we've been able to bring these real tax dollars to the table, we've swung the pendulum (economically)," Kaufman said.

Since earning its designation, the center has completed one deconstruction for Atlas Roofing, and now is about to partner with a contracting crew for deconstruction of residential units near City Park in Fort Collins. The upcoming project stands out because the center will train a private crew in deconstruction and then let them handle everything from there.

Unfortunately, the long vacancy at Nate's meant the retail center was in a rush to erect the new building. Kaufman says the contractors are at least doing a partial deconstruct, or "soft strip" of easily accessible materials. For those who have a little time on their side, deconstruction offers some beaucoup rewards, and not just in publicity points anymore.



Joshua Zaffos is a freelance journalist based in Northern Colorado who covers environmental issues for the Business Report quarterly. Contact him at news@ncbr.com.