PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)--The skyline of Portland may never rival New York, but the two cities are growing alike in the way they approach basic building design.

Portland and New York, along with Austin, Texas, have become the national leaders of the ``green building'' movement--an effort to stretch beyond simple improvements in energy efficiency and make everything from skyscrapers to county courthouses better places to live and work. The changes also must blend seamlessly with the environment.

The first replacement building at the World Trade Center site in New York will feature the latest in green design, said Craig Kneeland, chief of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

``The architects and the engineers made it clear they wanted a green building,'' he said.

The movement began to take shape in the late 1970s, when the Middle East oil embargo caused long lines at the gas pump. A new public awareness about energy conservation was the result, and that prompted President Jimmy Carter to ask everybody to turn down their thermostat.

It was formally organized in 1993 when the U.S. Green Building Council was founded to take a broader approach to design and construction. That included improvements in lighting, water consumption, insulation, windows, ventilation systems, electric motors for air conditioning and elevators, landscaping, new building materials and even reducing the amount of pavement for parking lots.

``It's all those things in an integrated package that's the power behind green buildings,'' said Christine Ervin, the council's president.

``And I say the power of green buildings because it has so much potential impact,'' said Ervin, who lives and works in Portland.

A study last year by Portland State University estimated that Oregon and Washington state alone could save $100 million a year by retrofitting older buildings and incorporating ``green'' designs into new construction.

The added cost is relatively small but the payback potential very large, according to Bob Doppelt, a University of Oregon professor who led the study while he was at Portland State.

A modest retrofitting program for buildings managed by the state Administrative Services Department recently saved $1.6 million in less than eight months, Doppelt said.

``We got that $1.6 million in Oregon in the blink of an eye,'' he said. ``If we put a systematic effort into it we could save hundreds of millions of dollars nationally and reduce our energy load.''

New York has become the first state to approve a statewide tax credit program to encourage green building design and construction.

``We're seeing that we can make buildings 35 percent more efficient than our energy code requires for less than 1 percent in construction cost,'' Kneeland said.

``That's upstate, downstate, big buildings, small buildings _ the savings are there, and you don't have to squeeze that hard.''

A number of large cities, especially Portland and Austin, have their own green building programs they hope will be expanded statewide.

``We have the distinction of having the most buildings on the ground or in the pipeline to meet the 'green' standard than any other city,'' said Dan Saltzman, a

Portland city commissioner who also is an environmental engineer.

As a result, he said, the Portland area has become a showcase for new buildings, such as the regional training office for American Honda Motor Co., the California-based U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese automaker.

The building in suburban Gresham has floors made of recycled tires, a roof that funnels rainwater into an underground storage basin for landscape irrigation and toilets, even tables made from crushed sunflower shells.

Retrofitted buildings also lead the list of green designs. The Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, a historic warehouse being redeveloped in northwest Portland, was the first restoration project in the nation to earn a gold ranking from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The council has developed a program called LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which certifies a building as ``green.'' It ranks them like Olympic medalists, in this case ranging from a basic rating to silver and gold, adding a platinum rating for the very best.

Portland was one of the first cities to adopt LEED standards. But Austin, Texas, was already certifying homes and buildings in the 1980s when it helped develop the federal Energy Star ratings for energy conservation, said Marc Richmond, project manager for the Austin green building program.

Austin abandoned Energy Star as too limited to rate a green building, Richmond said, moving to a LEED model to take account of the broad design range that covers everything inside and outside the building, from recycled carpeting to paving.

Even the productivity of workers is considered in rating a green building, Richmond said, because lighting, architecture and materials contribute to a healthy work place.

On the Net:
U.S. Green Building Council: http://www.usgbc.org
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority: http://www.nyserda.org
City of Portland: http://www.ci.portland.or.us
City of Austin green building program: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/greenbuilder

AP-NY-07-22-02 0804EDT

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