Santa Rosa Nissan dealer going green

<p>SANTA ROSA – Work begins this week on the new, green Nissan dealership, the first green Nissan agency and the first auto agency on the West Coast to go for gold LEED certification.</p><p>Partners Jim Bone, Lawrence Amaturo and Huxley Richardson got the go ahead from Nissan to launch what will be a 12-month project, turning what was once a Superfund polluted site into a gold-level certified operation.</p><p>According to Mr. Bone, co-owner and general manager, the Nissan of Santa Rosa is preparing for a significant increase in market share for its low-mileage cars and trucks. Within the year, it’ll bring out an all-electric Nissan auto. The makeover is intended to underscore Nissan’s commitment to a greener future.</p><p>“When we bought the agency in 2005, part of the deal was replacing the existing buildings, so we decided to do it right,” said Mr. Bone. “We’ve had this vision right from the beginning.”</p><p>Already one of the two buildings on the site since 1968 has been demolished, every scrap going into separate dumpsters for recycling. Even the asphalt will be ground up for reuse later in the project, said Mr. Bone. Daniel O Davis of Santa Rosa is doing the demolition work.</p><p>The new 32,000-square-foot building, about twice the size of the original, will be completed in eight months. Then the second building will be demolished.</p><p>A rooftop 98-kilowatt solar array will generate up to 75 percent of the agency’s energy use.</p><p>“Our current PG&E bill runs from $6,000 to $7,000 a month because we have to run the lights 24 hours for security reasons,” said Mr. Bone. “We figure the solar system will pay for itself in six years.”</p><p>The inside will feature an abundance of natural light from skylights, with an efficient heating and air conditioning system aided by large ceiling fans. All carpeting and tiles will be made of recycled material.</p><p>The outside walls will be highly insulated recycled steel panels, and the windows will have special high-performance glazing.</p><p>Chatsworth Construction of Lodi is the general contractor.</p><p>“All of our buildings are LEED certified no matter what their use,” said Chatsworth Vice President and CFO Christi Newport, adding that the Nissan project is the company’s first LEED-certified auto agency. Chatsworth put itself to school to learn how the process works.</p><p>“Now we have several other auto agencies wanting a level of certification. Audi Volkswagen of San Rafael is going for silver,” she said.</p><p>San Rafael is one of a few North Bay cities that now requires new buildings to be silver-certified. Santa Rosa does not, but the partners believe they’re setting an example to other auto agencies.</p><p>“It’s been a challenge,” said co-owner Lawrence Amaturo. “The previous owner cleaned up the pollution, but architects told us it couldn’t be done because of the amount of inventory we have to have and the necessity to store it on asphalt. But Chatsworth jumped right in. I think we’ll have more than the number of points we need to quality for gold.”</p><p>Points are hard to win. The partners’ $800,000 solar installation only gives them one point. To earn more they’ll put in extensive landscaping, watered by low-flow irrigation with runoff captured on the site.</p><p>They’ll also set up a program to accept and recycle batteries and a Web site to inform and gather input from the public.</p><p>Mr. Bone declined to divulge the cost of the project, which the partners are funding, but said the green features were costing about 20 percent above a traditional building project.</p>