But for the crummy economy, developers Ron Monahan and Terry Britton likely would have built all of the six townhouses and six single-family homes planned for SpringLeaf, their 1.75-acre eco-development in northwest Boulder, Colorado. Instead, they decided to move forward a bit more cautiously, building only one of the single-family houses, albeit with high-end finishes and renewables.

Visitors showing up earlier this month for SpringLeaf’s first open-house toured the 3,888-sq.-ft. $1.24 million three-bedroom and got the lowdown on its $49,000 geothermal heat pump system (with two wells, each 300 ft. deep) and a grid-linked 9.9kW photovoltaic system. As noted in a recent story in the Longmont Times-Call, the developers fully expect that the model – a big house by green construction standards – will earn LEED Platinum certification and perform at or very near net-zero energy. The performance and sustainability goals are the same (or very similar) for the remaining units, although those homes will be built, as SpringLeaf finds buyers, to a smaller scale and at a lower price.

“That’s the next thing we’re chasing,” Monahan told the paper. “We’ve hit the LEED Platinum out of the park; now we’re going after the price point.”

Serial green

SpringLeaf is not Monahan’s first high-efficiency green project. Collaborating with Boulder-based architect George Watt, who also designed SpringLeaf, Monahan announced in February plans to build what he said will be the first zero-energy home in South Carolina as part of Phase One of The Ridge at Chukker Creek, a project that includes 75 Energy Star homes.

SpringLeaf also is progressing in the spirit of other projects in the Boulder area that have embraced green principles, including Geos, a net-zero-energy mixed-use community that, if developer Norbert Klebl’s financing plans stay on track, will include as many as 240 homes and 30 live/work spaces on 25 acres in Arvada, Colorado, about 20 minutes southeast of Boulder.

As noted on the SpringLeaf website, the remaining homes planned for the development are designed with three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath layouts and as much as 2,700 sq. ft. of interior space, as well as geothermal and solar energy systems.