Sustainable Sites Initiative
Rainwater cistern at Pearl Brewery (San Antonio, TX )/ Photo by Rialto Studio
Pearl Brewery
Size & Type of Project:
Approx. 27 acres; 1.2 million planned square feet/ Greyfield; Urban Redevelopment; Adaptive Reuse – Residential, Retail, Educational, Entertainment, Office, and Recreational
Location:
San Antonio, Texas
Budget:
N/A
Project Phase:
Under development; Proposed completion in 2013
Project Overview
The 125-year-old Pearl Brewery, a historical Texas landmark on the banks of the San Antonio River, is being renovated and redeveloped to create a vibrant downtown urban village. The brewery is an adaptive re-use development, intermingling restaurants, urban residences, galleries, shops, and educational facilities in a comfortable environment of respectfully renovated buildings linked by public gardens, plazas, pathways and tree-lined streets. Pearl's public spaces will offer places for people to gather for a variety of civic and cultural purposes. Once considered a prime target for demolition, Pearl Brewery has become a catalyst for urban growth, creating a connection between downtown and the Pearl area, as well the surrounding bedroom communities.
To accommodate the client's priorities as well as San Antonio's aesthetics, climate, and vernacular, the design team is maintaining the industrial quality of the historic site while creating a new identity relevant to today's residents and visitors. Materials re-use, rainwater collection, and a native and regionally-appropriate plant palette reflect the environmental and cultural character of the region.
Site Context
Pearl Brewery is located in a dense urban setting in downtown San Antonio. Historically, the site was a part of the Texas Blackland Prairie, made up of oak savanna woodland and tall grass prairie. The climate is moderately subtropical and humid. The normal annual precipitation for San Antonio is about 30 inches, although it may range from near 10 to near 50 inches from one year to another.
Pearl Brewery (San Antonio, TX )/ Photo by Rialto Studio
Sustainable Practices
Sustainable practices implemented or built to-date
Protect and promote unique cultural and historic site attributes: Native plantings and local limestone are used throughout the project to enhance the site's sense of place and its cultural heritage. Paving materials were selected to set up a "district" feel to the Pearl site. For example, a custom blend of brick pavers was developed to harmonize with colors of the existing buildings and to recall pavers that graced the streets of San Antonio during the early years of the brewery's establishment. Additionally, galvanized metal elements (cable support posts, gratings, bollards, light fixtures, trash receptacles, etc.) reflect sturdy materials used at industrial sites, yet blend harmoniously with other material of the palette.
Early phases of the development focused attention on three buildings and their surroundings: the former brewery garage, a rail shipping warehouse, and the historic stable building. Most of the buildings are renamed according to their brewery use. The brewery's garage, originally completed in 1939, housed the workers and tools that kept Pearl's production and distribution in motion. Today the former garage bay area is home to a local restaurant that uses only Texas-grown ingredients. Much of the restaurant's outdoor seating is on a patio covered by an awning that once shaded mechanics working on equipment and vehicles. Other site developments include:
- Preservation of the old "oil change" pit, cleaned up, filled with soil and turned into pedestrian and planting space complete with a metal grating similar to the one covering it in its former use.
- A brick-paved patio outside of a culinary institute, containing one of the original Edwards Aquifer deep wells that once provided limestone-filtered water to the brewing process.
- Continuation of cable-suspended street lighting that replicates the web of electrical cables used during operation of the two electric-powered locomotive rail cars.
Accessibility, wayfinding, and interpretation: With universal accessibility in mind, vehicular and pedestrian spaces were designed using only flush street curbs to separate paving types, and bollards or other visual clues to separate uses where required. Concrete-banded brick paving cuts across the access road and forms the edge of the stable building entrance plaza. Existing railroad tracks have been reinstalled in their original locations to define pedestrian walkways and roads. The old "gas pump" island was restored to act as a spatial organizer (for parking) and to serve as a visual reference to the history of that specific site.
Encourage social interaction and restorative settings: Multiple outdoor spaces provide amenities for social interaction and restoration. The shade from trees, patios and covered structures enhances visitor comfort. Movable chairs and tables provide adjustable and user-friendly spaces. For example, the entry plaza to the stable building was established to double as an outdoor gathering space and contains elements of enclosure, shade, delightful sound, and seating, all paying homage to the historic significance of the site. The shade is from the large relocated oak tree and the sound is from the "trough" water feature. The water feature is designed to resemble a trough for the stable building and has small fountains that create enough splashing to drown out offsite noise but not conversations. One side of the plaza is enlosed by an electric locomotive train car, used on-site when the brewery was in operaton, under a pavilion. The plaza is paved with the custom blend of bricks and the seating is movable chairs and tables). Additionally, a water feature and raised planters double as a seat wall, creating spaces for unstructured interaction.
The heart and soul of the project is a plaza in front of the iconic brew house, the most architecturally prominent building on site. Mexican plazas, visited by the design team, provided the inspiration for the space.
Material reuse: Two beer brewing tanks (7,500 gallons each) have been refurbished and reused for rainwater collection; three additional tanks are in the current construction phase. Refurbished brewing tanks are planned for future building phases. In addition, the site is using a locally produced blend of concrete made up of local river sand and aggregates that are unique to the site, combined with 40 percent fly ash (a waste byproduct generated in the combustion of coal).
Stormwater management: Stormwater runoff quality was improved by implementation of a bioswale at the edge of the largest parking lot and along a large section of the perimeter of the developed site. The first half-inch of rain runoff flows over a flush curb into a wide planting area (part of the bioswale) allowing it to percolate into the landscape area. Approximately 48 percent of the parking lots are designed to filter stormwater water
Rainwater collection and irrigation: Rainwater collection was incorporated into the site design. Industrial remnants (pipes, valves, beer and water storage tanks, etc.) salvaged from the former brewery are used to store water collected from building roofs. Approximately 65 percent (or 60,000 square feet) of the roof surface area is routed through the rainwater collection cisterns, with the water used for irrigation. The water is distributed to nearby planting beds and tree wells by a simple, passive, low-pressure distribution system. The current rainwater harvesting system irrigates approximately 28 percent of the landscape and is designed to supplement potable water for irrigation. To conserve water, shrub areas are irrigated via drip systems.
Reduce heat island impact: The original site was 99 percent impervious. Currently, 14 percent of the site has been converted to pervious surfaces. The planned amphitheater is mostly impervious and in the future, there will be landscape areas added to all of the buildings as they are developed.
Parking lots have been shaded with native trees. Approximately 177 trees have been planted to date with an estimate of 540 trees total. Where trees could not be planted, a trellis system was designed to shade parking spaces with native vines.
Tree preservation: A grove of large pecan trees is being preserved by designing around the root zones and using porous paving. In addition, a historical 36-inch caliper, 60-foot canopy Live Oak tree was relocated to shade the entry plaza to the stable building and provide scale to the electric locomotive train car and shed.
Sustainable Practices in design or construction phase
Connectivity: The site is located along the north extension of the San Antonio Riverwalk, making the entire area accessible by an existing, heavily-used pedestrian system. Once completed, this site will be the northern node of the Riverwalk, providing a public amphitheater and access to over six acres of gardens, plazas, public pathways, open spaces and tree-lined streets. The site is also less than a quarter-mile from four bus lines and bike lanes connect to the site from several directions. There is a two-way protected bike lane running north-south along the project. This connects the site to Brackenridge Park on the north and downtown on the south. There is also a striped bike line on the north side of the project running east-west. Bike storage will be provided for the majority of the buildings on the site.
Non-potable water for Irrigation: Recent extensions to the city's recycled water bring a line close to this project site. The project team is currently working on details to tap the recycled water system and reduce potable water use in the landscape, potentially eliminating potable water in future phases. When the recycled water system is connected, it will replace potable water as the backup to the cisterns in periods of low rainfall. The recycled water will also be used for the chillers and may be used to irrigate areas that will not have rainwater catchment systems.
Green Roof: A proposed green roof for one of the future buildings is in the early stages of planning.
Stormwater Management: Plans call for a 15,000-square foot parking lot with permeable paving (Ecocrete) to protect the root zones of existing mature pecan trees and will potentially reduce stormwater runoff.
Construction Cost
Because some rainwater cisterns were reused brewing tanks found on site, the only costs associated with them were retrofittng ($5,000 each) and placing them on a foundation. New metal cisterns increased the irrigation budget for that "Can" building by about 4 percent, but the money saved on water will quickly offset the extra money spent on irrigation cisterns. The "Can" Building uses new metal cisterns instead of the brewing tanks because of size restraints.
Monitoring Information
The vegetation has remained healthy and much of the smaller vegetation has grown to mature size. The large Live Oak that was transplanted onsite had problems getting re-established, but an aggressive maintenance program has helped it survive. Visitor use has continued to increase with each new building completed. Vegetation is evaluated regularly and when needed the plant list is adjusted to respond to site conditions.
Maintenance
An integrated or organic pest management program is being developed for future maintenance efforts. A target pest management system is under way. Organic fertilizers and native mulches and composts are being used along with coated slow-release products. In addition, the maintenance team is responsible for making sure the rainwater systems are working correctly.
Bioswale at Pearl Brewery (San Antonio, TX )/ Photo by Rialto Studio
Issues/Constraints of the Site
Highly expansive soils - For the landscape soils, we added organic material to all planting areas to increase the holding capacity of the soil. Flexible paving systems were used to accommodate the soils - clay pavers on a sand bed. Footings and piers are deeper than common practices.
Lessons Learned
- The design process for rainwater collection systems, flush-curb parking, and other sustainable practices have been developed, making the learning curve for the next project much shorter.
- Rainwater was not used in the water features after having bad experiences with graywater in a previous project. The rainwater storage system at Pearl is not equipped with treatment systems adequate for public contact. To date all of the rainwater irrigation is dispersed through drip or tree bubblers.
More project details
Project Consultants
Landscape Architect:
Jim Gray
President
Rialto Studio
Developer:
Shawn Hatter
Development Manager
Silver ventures
Architects:
Lake|Flato
Sprinkle Co.
3Architecture
Civil Engineers:
Pape Dawson
Structural Engineers:
Danysh & Associates