DeForest School Board may build a school and park on 27-acre parcel

Park Towne Welcomes Madison Capital Investments and Valence Health

We would like to welcome Madison Capital Investments and Valence Health to the Park Towne family of tenants.

Madison Capital Investments will be occupying 1,800 sf at 402 Gammon Place. They are an investment company that deals in Direct Participation Programs (DPP’s) and specializes in oil and gas asset investments.

Valence Health will occupy 875 sf at 6410 Enterprise Lane. Valence Health offers providers, health plans and risk bearing organizations, such a provider sponsored networks and IPAs, a wide selection of products and services all geared toward providing operational excellence and the competitive edge they need to survive and thrive in today’s evolving healthcare arena.

Rotary Selects Michelle Sturz, Marketing Manager with Park Towne, for Group Study Exchange Program in Japan

Madison , WI —October 2, 2009. Michelle Sturz was recently selected to participate in Rotary’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program, an international, four-week cross-cultural learning experience that promotes awareness of and appreciation for other cultures throughout the world.

Sturz, 39, Marketing Manager with Park Towne, a Madison real estate development company, will be one of four delegates from the U.S. who will be participating in the Group Study Exchange program (GSE) to Japan.

In addition to her work with Park Towne, Sturz sits on numerous community boards of which many pertain to autism and people with disabilities. She is a current board member of the Autism Society of Wisconsin, Disability Rights Wisconsin, Wisconsin Family Ties, and Medicaid trainer for Family Voices of Wisconsin. Additionally, she is a member of Madison MAGNET, Accelerate Madison, and Madison Area Builders Association (MABA).

The Rotary GSE program is open to young professionals who are 25-40 years-old, are working full-time, and have been working in the early stages of their chosen career for at least two years.

The team leaves for the Chiba prefecture of Japan on October 15 th. Sturz will stay with host families who are Rotarians, visit local businesses and, along with her fellow team members, speak at 14 different Rotary Clubs.

Joyce Maly Promoted to Chief Financial Officer

Joyce Maly has been promoted to chief financial officer at Park Towne Development Corp., Madison. Maly, who was previously accounting and data processing manager, is celebrating 25 years with the firm.

Maly is involved in the operation of Conservancy Place, the master-planned community that Park Towne is developing in DeForest, along with commercial buildings the firm owns and manages.

Park Towne, a Madison-based real estate company, purchases, develops and manages land, commercial and residential real estate properties throughout Southern Wisconsin.

A home with energy
Unearth the benefits with a Green Built Home
Special to Hometown Newsgroup
By Sharyn Alden

When you start thinking about buying a new home, you’ll undoubtedly look for homes that best fit your lifestyle and needs.

But wait, not so fast. Before you start picking out paint colors and looking at floor samples, think green.

You’ll reap big benefits if you look for a new home that has plenty of green features already built in.

Homes with green amenities not only offer good indoor air quality, minimal heat loss, good airflow, advanced drainage systems and other streamlined functions, they are efficient and economical to operate.

So plat your course before you make your next move. When you do, you’ll end up with the home you want, plus, you’ll benefit from a cleaner, more sustainable energy future for you and your family.

Earth-friendly neighborhood

Conservancy Place, a 650-acre master-planned community in DeForest, situated along the Yahara River corridor, includes several Green Built Homes. The community offers the best of both worlds for homeowners. It is where the future of development— of creating a community and protecting a natural environment, come together.

It’s a place where you can live, work and play, where housing options are varied, and where you can take pleasure each time that you come home.

It’s exactly why Dan Jansen and his wife Lydia chose their Green Built Home at Conservancy Place. The couple moved to Madison from the East Coast four years ago.

When they began shopping for a home in the Madison area, they made a conscious decision to buy a home with “green features.”

“When Lydia and I saw this house we were blown away by the use of its green, environmentally friendly features throughout the house,” said Jansen.

The family’s home has passed two stringent green-home assessments. It has been certified as a Wisconsin Energy Star House and also as a Green Built Home.

Jansens’ Conservancy Place home, across from the Yahara River, was also landscaped with green building in mind. “I enjoy walking the Catfish Trail here with my five-year-old son and watching the Yahara River go by,” Jansen notes.

Typically, you won’t see a green home if you drive by it. But behind the scenes numerous green built-in features are working to improve the environment and make sustainable living easy and fun.

In the Jansen home, which has highly efficient appliances, some of its green-built amenities include formaldehyde-free insulation, nontoxic natural materials, and recycled features such as fibers in the carpeting, bamboo floors, and the use of low volatile organic compounds (VOC) paint which has numerous environmental benefits.

Jansen has found many people don’t fully understand the savings that homeowners can realize when green amenities are built into their home. Perhaps the biggest takeaway message is this: “It doesn’t have to cost an arm and leg to live in a green home in a green environment,” he says.

One of those green living features is installed on the Jansen’s kitchen wall. “That’s our energy meter,” he says. “It gives us continual read-outs of the energy we’re using,” says Jansen. “It’s not only efficient, it’s fun to follow and see the amount of energy we’re using. It’s a reminder to make lifestyle changes like turning lights off when we leave a room.”

Jansen points out it can be a cost saver when you buy a home with green features already built in compared to adding them in later. “It’s a big benefit for the homeowner to know that these amenities are already there working for you.”

So what is it like to live in a Green Built Home? For starters, an energy efficient home may mean big savings in energy bills. The Jansens’ former East Coast home was a 1500 square-foot home built in 1942. They enjoy comparing utility bills between the two homes.

Their 3,000 square-foot home is twice as big as their former home, but the difference in utility bills is staggering. “Our utility bills were about three times higher in the old home,” says Jansen. “The energy costs here are a great financial return. It’s just one reason why it pays to buy a green home.”

On one section of Jansen’s property a rock garden contains a French drain, an environmentally friendly drainage system. “When it rains, and it fills with water, my son and I like to go outside and watch the water ‘percolating’ in our innovative drain system,” he said.

All this and more comes with living green. Jansen succinctly sums up his family’s experience. “Our family has found it’s a boatload of fun living in a green environment.”

Creatively green

“It’s easier and more economical to add green features when you’re building a home or buying a new home,” said Joe Ring, executive vice president of land services with Park Towne, a real estate development company. “It gives you a unique opportunity to control the quality of your environment and leave less of a carbon footprint behind.”

It takes a long time to acquire all of the right things for a home. If a house doesn’t’ have green features when you moved in, it may be many years before you get around to adding them.

And that, says Ring, can be a more costly undertaking when green building is done after the fact.

If an energy efficient environment is at the top of your priority list, consider the difference in buying a used home versus a new home.

“When you buy a used home, almost everything you’re buying is used,” Ring explained. “That means you won’t know what the efficiency level may be.”

If you’re losing energy due to insulation, it’s easy to add more insulation in the attic, but it may be difficult to completely improve the energy efficiency throughout the house.

“To do that,” Ring said, “you might have to take out walls and update the construction. These can be big, costly projects that many homeowners would rather forego.”

When you buy a new home, you’re buying the newest building techniques, improved energy efficiency, and airtight construction.

The bottom line is this: “When you build a home, you can tailor it to fit your lifestyle and needs. Building gives you more choices— to have a more energy efficient environment and customized features that perfectly match the home you’ve always wanted,” said Ring.

For more information see greenstarhomes.biz and ConservancyPlace.com.

A new home offers big-time benefits

“When you buy a new home, there are more opportunities to make it your own right from the start,” said Ring.

“You can select some of the design features, plus, you’ll have a one year warranty.”

If you’re looking for a new

Homeowners should look for this logo to indicate a Green Built home.

home, consider the advantages of living in a brand new home.

Some of those reasons for buying a brand new home aren’t always obvious.

Here are some of the features that draw home buyers to buying a brand new home versus a “used” home which they “inherit” from a previous home owner.

• Share in Building a Community: It’s fulfilling and fun to be part of a community you grow with.

New communities like Conservancy Place, offer plenty of features like walking trails and parks with brand new, family-friendly amenities.

• The joy of having new, never been used features. It goes without saying that if you buy a brand new home, you won’t have to spend time scraping off old wallpaper and paint to customize it to your family’s needs.

What you will have is more time to enjoy your home as its first residents.

• Where technology comes together: New homes can accommodate the latest high-tech offices, entertainment areas and security systems.

Plus, older homes hardly ever have enough outlets to accommodate the lifestyles of today’s homeowners.

• Greener, more energy efficient. Builders are promoting more energy efficient homes by incorporating a wide variety of good building practices and materials.

A home may be built on a lot to take advantage of shade and sunlight, have numerous energy efficient appliances, solar shingles, light-conserving windows, and use recycled materials that benefits the homeowner as well as the environment.