Belt Line Center

Detroit, MI

Solutions Provided

Inhabitect-GSI
  • GSI – Green stormwater infrastructure manages almost 100% of the rainwater hitting the rooftop, parking lot, and landscape in the active areas of this project.
Green Roof icon - Inhabitect
  • Green Roof – An extensive green roof — covering over 80% of the total retrofit roof area — is installed over a fully restored waterproofing membrane. A blue roof (link to blue roof page section) is also used below the pedestal pavers and vegetation-free zones.
Green Streets icon - Inhabitect
  • Green Streets – Incorporating resilient stormwater management measures allows for this site to meet our green street designation.
Rain Garden icon - Inhabitect
  • Rain Garden – A large stormwater basin is used to capture excessive runoff from the green roof, parking lot, permeable paving, and landscape.
Inhabitect Consulting
  • Consulting – Inhabitect helped manage this project from concept to completion and worked closely with the architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, and general trade contractors to ensure the project’s success.
Inhabitect-PACE
  • PACE – Inhabitect helped the owner secure over $1 million dollars in C-PACE funding on this project. Seeing it through from start to finish, we acted as the PACE Contractor, Design Consultant & Construction Manager, and we installed the green roof, permeable paving, landscaping, and rain garden.

Project Description

The Belt Line Center shows that when a property is in need of a roof replacement, a green roof can more than pay for itself! This is the first building in Michigan to use PACE Financing to finance a green roof. 

Located on the site of Detroit’s future Beltline Greenway, the green roof project at this Albert Kahn building makes for an excellent addition to the Belt Line Center’s growing community of artisans and creative entrepreneurs. 

In addition to the 17,250 sq. ft. vegetated green roof, 300 sq. ft. pedestal pavers, and 2,500 sq. ft. blue roof, the project’s rain garden will supply a secondary measure of stormwater management — providing infiltration of any stormwater runoff that’s not already captured on the rooftop.

The Belt Line Center PACE project showcases a cost-effective way to reduce energy use and control water runoff, while expanding the longevity of the building’s rooftop.

PACE Financing

In today’s development market, many U.S. municipalities and counties are providing incentives for owners and developers to use energy efficient and green infrastructure practices within their new build and retrofit projects. For commercial building owners — who spend $200 billion per year on utilities, with 30% of those dollars essentially wasted through energy inefficiencies — these green building ‘nudges’ couldn’t come at a better time. PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) Financing gives commercial/multi-family property owners and non-profits the opportunity to fund the installation of energy and water efficient technologies — including green roofs and other Green Stormwater Infrastructure — with low-cost, zero-down financing.