Covering a city block in downtown Kansas City, 18Broadway integrates best practices in storm water management with urban agriculture, sustainable building and renewable energy solutions.

A “Water Quality Event” is a 1.37-inch rainfall, which historically represents 90 percent of all rain events each year in Kansas City. 18Broadway is designed to capture, cleanse and store up to four Water Quality Events without any storm water discharge to the city’s sewer infrastructure. The captured and naturally filtered storm water is used to irrigate the site’s gardens.

18Broadway is designed to be a net-zero energy use site. At this time, it incorporates a wind turbine and photo-voltaic panels. The turbine, specifically selected because of its low-wind capabilities in an urban site and to showcase its market application for residential use, powers the site’s perimeter lighting fixtures. The solar panels are used to offset the energy consumed by the site’s water pumps. In the future, buildings developed on the property will be designed to be effective and imaginative in their use of sunlight, rainfall, materials and technology.