A plan to use $1 million in federal stimulus money to help build an innovative combined office building-greenhouse on Route 175 in Jessup is faltering because its owner can't get bank financing for the project.
Stanley J. Sersen, a 30-year veteran of the energy wars, was forced Wednesday to withdraw his application to Maryland environmental officials for the federal funds, which must be used by year's end. The national credit crunch has stymied his effort to get financing for the project, he said, but he hasn't given up.
"As our project is critical to showing how the built environment can stop toxic runoff into the bay, we will continue on our journey to get the project built," he said in a statement.
His Enviro Center, which occupies an enlarged 1905 farmhouse in Jessup and is an environmental business incubator and model for energy and resource recycling ideas, will continue operating, Sersen said. He hopes to eventually franchise the concept of the environmental incubators and showplaces nationally.
Sersen's existing building is carbon neutral, he said, and produces much of its own energy through solar panels, skylights and "sun tubes" that funnel outside light to specific areas. It also has radiant heat in the floors and recycles all rainwater runoff.
Part of the roof is covered with growing plants, and the receptionist's countertop is made from compressed sunflower seed hulls instead of pressed particleboard and laminate. Windows near the peaked roof add heat in winter and open electrically in warm weather to let in cooling breezes.
Sersen said he's still pursuing funding for his $5.4 million Phase II project from private nonprofits interested in the environment. After seeking financing from a variety of banks, he said, they refused to lend him more than $2.8 million because of low appraisals for the finished building. Many borrowers, for residential and commercial projects, have voiced similar complaints since the financial crash last year.
"In this economy, it's a sign of the times," Sersen said about the credit crunch.
The federal money, part of a $121.6 million stimulus grant to Maryland's Department of the Environment from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, is intended to aid water reclamation projects, said Dawn Stoltzfus, the agency's communications director. Stoltzfus said MDE has had about 600 applications for the money, but has funds for only about 95 projects. Two dozen of those applications have been withdrawn so far for a variety of reasons, she said, though credit financing problems have not been a major factor.
