African Visitors to Take Raleigh’s “Sustainability Walking Tour”

Jayne Kirkpatrick, Director, Public Affairs

Prepared by and for more information: Donna-maria Harris, Senior Public Affairs Specialist, Office of Sustainability, 919-996-4259

June 11, 2013 

African Visitors to Take Raleigh’s “Sustainability Walking Tour”

 The City of Raleigh Office of Sustainability will lead a contingent of visitors from Africa on the Downtown Raleigh Sustainability Walking Tour on Friday, June 14. The 14 visitors represent different regions of Africa and are members of a business development project for young entrepreneurs. They were invited to the United States under the auspices of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

The International Affairs Council of North Carolina requested the walking tour in order to meet the visitors’ objectives and interest in eco-tourism, and their desire to see economic development and technology innovation in Raleigh. The walking tour features sustainability concepts such as protecting the natural environment, employing local labor and local materials, repurposed architecture and construction, access to health and nutrition, the use of greenways and open spaces, and renewable energy.

Friday’s tour will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the Raleigh Convention Center at 500 S. Salisbury Street. The LEED-Silver certified building features numerous sustainable features such as a 500- kilowatt rooftop solar array, a solar photo voltaic and sustainability kiosk, rainwater harvesting systems, low-flow plumbing devices and energy-efficient LED lighting.

Highlights along the tour will include:

• Big Belly Solar Trash Compactors and Recycling units throughout Downtown Raleigh that are powered by solar energy;
• Solar charging stations at 614 S. Salisbury Street. The charging stations are powered by two solar panels providing 2.88 kilowatts of electricity;
• Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts at 2 E. South Street. The core of the performing arts center, Memorial Auditorium, was built during the Great Depression. The auditorium and its flanking wings have been redesigned using LED lighting, occupancy sensor lights, uses “green” cleaning supplies, and low-flow plumbing;
• Shaw University at 118 E. South St. Founded in 1865, Shaw is the first historically black college in the south;
• The Marriott Hotel at 500 Fayetteville St. The hotel is an example of local businesses adopting sustainable concepts such as the LED-lit parking deck with an electric-vehicle (EV) charging station;
• City Plaza, featuring the LED ornamental light towers and on Wednesdays, from spring through fall, the location of the Downtown Farmer’s Market;
• Green Square, featuring two blocks of LEED-Gold certified development featuring the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources;
• The Raleigh Municipal Building featuring its parking deck with LED lights, EV charging stations and the level II EV plug-in charging stations in front of the building; and,
• The Cree Shimmer Wall on the west side of the Raleigh Convention Center.

Members of the African contingency are from Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Kenya, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, South Africa and Sudan. For more information about the International Visitor Leadership Program and the participants, contact Janet Felts or Leila Bekri, International Affairs Council of North Carolina, at 919-838-9191 or programs@iacnc.org.

For more information about the Downtown Raleigh Sustainability Walking Tour, contact Donna-maria Harris at Donna-maria.Harris@raleighnc.gov or 919-996-4259.