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NO EMISSIONS, NO WORRIES

Markham condo offers eco-friendly climate control

It's hard to miss the new Circa condominium, rising up from the Markham skyline in a sexy edifice of brick, precast concrete and glass. But environmentally speaking, the building is invisible.

There are zero emissions coming from Circa, the first residential building connected to Markham District Energy (MDE) and the first in Canada to be supplied by EcoLogo-certified heating and cooling.

MDE is a co-generation plant -- a highly efficient way to produce both heat and power. Fuelled by clean-burning natural gas, electricity is produced and sent to the local grid to become part of the province's energy mix. The thermal-energy by-product is recovered and used to produce hot water and chilled water, sent to Circa through an underground pipe system, which is then used for domestic hot water as well as space heating and cooling. Think of a car in winter, when the heat coming off the engine is used to warm the interior. "Waste heat" becomes free heat, making the plant doubly efficient and qualifying it for the EcoLogo label, an Environment Canada designation for environmentally responsible products and services.

At Circa, that means every suite is heated and cooled by a green energy source, as is the Hollywood-worthy two-storey lobby with its burbling water walls and lighted columns. The massive amenity space that includes a games room, indoor swimming pool, party room and virtual golf centre uses the same system.

"We don't have any boilers here, we don't have any chillers here. We're the first to actually have people living in that environment," says Scott McLellan, Tridel's vice-president of sales and marketing.

Having the equipment off-site eliminates the cost of maintaining it and frees up valuable real estate. And, as condo dwellers everywhere can appreciate, the pleasure of having year-round control over indoor climate cannot be underestimated. Residents surely won't miss waiting for those twice-yearly notices of the changeover from heating to cooling.

Buyers have been moving in to the 380 suites over the past six months. The 16-storey second phase, which just went on sale, will have 390 one-, two- and three-bedroom suites ranging from 630 to 1,696 square feet and penthouses from 1,608 to 2,936 sq. ft. Prices start at $217,000 and go up to $1.25-million. Another 160 carriage homes have been built west of the Phase 1 tower, a partnership of Dorsay Development Corp. and Tridel, which received the 2006 Green Toronto Award for Energy Conservation.

Located at Hwy. 7 and Warden Avenue, Circa is on the northwestern edge of the 400-hectare Markham Centre area designated for so-called smart growth. The next decade will see an influx of 25,000 residents, plus the development of more than half a million square feet of retail space, four schools, several office towers and nearly 80 hectares of green space. It's all being laid out as a pedestrian-, transit- and bicycle-friendly "urbantopia" where citizens can live, work and play, presumably cutting down on the commuter gridlock that currently chokes Markham at rush hours.

It's part of a long-term plan for sustainability, of which district energy is a key component, being ideally suited for densely populated pockets in urban centres.

Toronto's downtown core has had heating and/or cooling supplied by Enwave (formerly Toronto District Heating Corp.) since 1964, and the Regent Park revitalization includes plans for such a system.

"We can incorporate technologies the buildings wouldn't necessarily do themselves, like co-generation or solar energy or energy from waste," says Bruce Ander, president of MDE. "These are things a community-wide system will do [that] an individual building just can't do."

As Markham grows, so MDE will grow. Its expansion, expected to be complete in 2021, will add up to three more plants in the area, with a total capacity to generate 28 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power the equivalent of 28,000 homes -- and a corresponding 28 megawatts of thermal energy for heating and cooling.

Circa joins a handful of nearby commercial customers, such as IBM and Motorola, connected to the co-generation plant. Residents pay for electricity through separately metered suites and can expect their heating and cooling to cost about 5% to 10% less than in a conventional condo, according to Mr. Ander. They can also rest easy knowing their building is not emitting harmful carbon dioxide or refrigerants.

"Hopefully, they already feel it," says Mr. McLellan, "and when the rest of Markham Centre gets built and occupied, I think it'll be a terrific feature -- mainly for the environment, but certainly for the individual homeowners."