Plans For Eco-Mart Get Green Light

22 November 2006 - 11:00am

Developers in Chicago are hoping to reuse an old lamp factory building by transforming it into a green merchandise mart.

After the local city Alderman nixed a plan for turning the building into condominiums, brothers David and Douglas Baum have proposed transforming the 250,000-square-foot building into the "Green Exchange", which would be home to "a building supply business, a furniture maker, a printing company and other environmentally conscious businesses."

"'If you're a customer that wants to buy paint that has no toxins, you may also have interest in using a green architect and investing in a socially responsible mutual fund,' David Baum says. 'I think we're hitting a tipping point in environmentalism and it's becoming mainstream.'"

Source: Crain's Chicago Business, November 21, 2006
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