In the waiting area of the year-old eco-friendly compound known as Rancho Verde, the walls are covered with article clippings, awards and photographs of the landscaping business's gregarious founder Christy Webber.

And with its status as the first new construction Platinum LEED (Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building in the city, and a recent recipient of the city's GreenWorks Award, the company has a lot to brag about.

Webber, 46, started Christy Webber Landscapes in Wicker Park in 1988, setting up shop from an alley off the 1900 block of Evergreen near Damen. She also cleaned apartments to make a living, but with the help of friends, the mowing business quickly grew into something much more.

"I think the gay community was really good to me; they really got behind me and hired me to take care of their grass," Webber says. "Women were really excited to see a woman do it."

The company quadrupled in size between 1998 and 2004, and now is a multi-million-dollar enterprise with some 200 employees. The business also has city and private contracts for noteworthy mega-projects, including the installation of a large portion of Millennium Park. Webber says when she first started out she had no idea how to bid a project.

"I could just hear some of the larger scale companies, because I say this now, like, 'They'll be out of business in a year. They don't know how to price anything. Look at that lowballer,'" she says. "I guess I just didn't need much to live on and I made it work."

She says for years she regularly bid larger projects 25 percent lower than other companies, a practice that would come back to haunt her during the Millennium Park job. She says that project, which covered roughly 70 percent of the installation, lasted several years and almost bankrupted her because she bid so low and was too eager to please.

"I guess I can brag about it now, but at the time it was very painful. It took me years to be able to go down there," she says.

In 2003, Webber was approached by the city to develop the Rancho Verde site at 2900 Ferdinand.

The site was occupied by Griffin Wheel Company and later the Union Pacific Railroad for the first half of the 20th Century. It was owned by Sacramento Rock Crushing from the 1970s to the 1990s.

The ultra-modern compound-which sits on 12 acres in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor next door to the Center for Green Technology-uses geothermal heating and cooling, wind and solar power, and a number of other environmental features with the goal of using 55 percent less energy than a typical building of its size.

It is one of five buildings in the state to receive the Platinum LEED status from the United States Green Building Council for incorporating sustainable features into the design and landscaping.

The building diverts storm water from the sewer through the use of a permeable path leading up to the facility, as well as through the pothole-sized bioswales around the property and a larger retention pond. Kristen Kepnick, a special projects manager at Christy Webber Landscapes, says the bioswales and the pond are filled with moisture-loving grasses with large root systems that draw the water into the ground.

"Basically, the water falls on the paths and the street and some of it is absorbed then. If it's raining harder than that, then it goes to the swales, and if those can't handle it, then it makes its way to the retention pond," Kepnick says.

Anything the retention pond can't handle heads to the sewer, but that only happens during large storms, Kepnick says.

The facility channels about 200,000 gallons of storm water runoff a year into large cisterns that is later used to water the facility. The facility's second-floor green roof also contributes to the storm water management system.

The east-west orientation of the building drops the utility use by about 20 percent, allowing the structure to maximize the amount of natural light it receives and minimize the energy it uses.

Another system that shaves the energy costs is the facility's geothermal cooling and heating system.

"In this courtyard 220 feet under the surface there is a system of pipes that are filled with water and a food-grade glycol. Those actually capture the earth's temperature at that level, which is generally 50 to 55 degrees all year, and so in the summertime we can use that cool water to cool that air in the building," Kepnick says.

The same theory is used to warm the building in the winter, Kepnick says.

A double-helix model wind turbine designed by Aerotecture supplies the building's nighttime energy. And the computer system draws heat from different buildings in the compound and from the outside to more evenly control the structure's temperature.

Webber says she's been working to secure the site since 1998, when she lost a bid to redevelop the site that currently houses the Chicago Center for Green Technology. She says she believes the green facility can help turn around an inherently dirty industry.

"We're trying. It's about the only thing we do that's green; everything else we do is dirty," she says.

She says the recent GreenWorks award from the city was particularly for transformation of industry. She says she hopes to continue to advance that effort.

"They are like, 'Here's your award for your building, but now you need to be a leader in your industry,'" she says. "But our industry doesn't want any direction, believe me."

CONTACT: timinklebarger@chicagojournal.com