Owner found way to retrofit building that is super energy efficient: geothermal energy
This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on May 4, 2024.
Talking about climate change can be unsettling. Some of its challenges seem almost too big to comprehend. But there are things that can have a real impact. And climate “action” doesn’t always look like you think it might. In a limited series, the Star profiles Torontonians who are making grassroots contributions in their communities.
It’s not much to look at from the outside.
A squat industrial building down an anonymous street in the city’s northwest corner, 501 Alliance Ave. has the gravel-stuck-to-concrete facade of a bygone era.
But inside, things couldn’t be more cutting edge. Beakers are bubbling in a carbon capture lab, bottles of water are being turned into hydrogen and the entire building doesn’t produce a gram of carbon.
It’s a marriage of form and function under a single roof, where cleantech businesses are bustling in an environment that showcases how a transition off fossil fuels can be profitable.
While most “green” buildings are new builds, typically flaunting industry standards like LEED Platinum, the Alliance Avenue edifice shows that old buildings, which have a harder time getting these kinds of certifications, can actually be more environmentally responsible.
“The greenest building is one that already exists,” said Elliot Strashin, the man who bought the structure 12 years ago when it was in such bad shape, leaks were being directed into a drinking fountain using plastic wrap.
Most landlords would have torn down the 1960s-era building where Cooper made hockey equipment, and built a new one from scratch — especially those who value sustainability and want something as close to carbon-neutral as possible. But Strashin isn’t most landlords. He thinks this approach is flawed.
“Even if you built a zero-emission building, it would still take forever to make up for all the emissions to make the concrete,” he said.
There are more than 16 million homes and almost half a million commercial and public buildings in Canada, which produce 13 per cent of the nation’s carbon emissions — mostly from heating.
Retrofitting these buildings to meet our commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 is a colossal task, requiring — according to one estimate — one home to be taken off fossil fuels and converted to electricity every minute for the next 26 years.
Among the policymakers and think tanks that have contemplated this endeavour, there are wildly differing opinions on how to make it happen, from giant public works like district heating to plug-and-play solutions like heat pumps. Both come with steep upfront costs, with estimates ranging from $140 to over $800 billion.
It’s enough to make any business or homeowner blanch.
But Strashin said these studies are way off. He’s found a way to retrofit old, leaky buildings in a way that makes them super energy efficient and eliminates their carbon emissions: geothermal energy.
In the parking lot out back, he drilled 74 holes 300 feet deep. It cost $700,000, but the payback was less than four years. That’s because he saves $150,000 a year in what he used to pay for natural gas and another $50,000/year on A/C.
So, if getting off fossil fuels is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?
The answer, Strashin said, is because the incentives are all wrong. Condo developers sell off their building as soon as it’s complete and won’t spend more to reduce utility bills when those savings accrue to someone else.
Commercial landlords, like Strashin, get tenants to pay utilities and are similarly disincentivized to make a building more energy efficient.
His work around: “If the utility costs are lower, I can charge more in rent. The tenant only cares about the total amount they pay.”
“If you can present something that’s good for the environment and also saves them money, it’s the perfect scenario.”
A second-generation Canadian who grew up in a family that built houses and strip malls, Strashin didn’t want to go into the family business. He was a family doctor working in northern Ontario when his father passed away and he returned to Toronto to settle his affairs. But when the real estate market collapsed in the early 90s, he started acquiring old warehouses and industrial buildings in the downtown core, almost in spite of himself.
“I decided I couldn’t just sit on these little strip plazas. I had to grow them into something else,” he said.
Strashin took an early interest in environmentally friendly renovations, moving against the trend of exposing the brick and beam and instead insulating and replacing windows to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat and cool them.
“I’m not doing this just to be altruistic. I’m doing it to make money. But if I can make money by doing something green — terrific!” he said.
When Strashin bought the building on Alliance Avenue, he inherited a tenant named Dennis Campbell, who ran a small geothermal heating company called Polar Bear.
“I thought he was a maniac mad scientist,” he said.
“But I found out he is a genius with ground-source heat pumps — green solutions that make financial sense.”
With over 30 years of expertise building residential geothermal systems, Campbell knew how efficient they are and made an offer Strashin couldn’t refuse. He said he could build a system to heat and cool the entire 380,000 square foot building for the same price as it would cost to replace the cooling system alone.
“He takes a copper coil, a compressor and a pump. I mean, it’s off the shelf stuff. And he doesn’t use complicated controls. It’s all just natural relays. So if anything breaks, you can just fix it,” Strashin said.
Today, Campbell is still a tenant, but the building around him has transformed radically. Solar panels blanketing the roof power stacks of heat pumps in the basement. Pipes carrying water snake along the ceiling of every unit and corridor, transferring heat from the ground to air handlers throughout the building.
“I reused an old building. I use no natural gas for heating. I send to the grid more green electricity that I use,” said Strashin. “I am open to the challenge of a green standoff with any other building in the country.”
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