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Quad-City builder will represent U.S. at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing

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By Alma Gaul | Tuesday, January 02, 2007 | 1 comment(s)

(Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES) George Bialecki Jr. shows off the unusual street in front of one of his Amber Ridge senior living homes in Moline. The street is made of pavers that are spaced so stormwater will flow between the cracks and soak into the ground. The roof tiles of the building are composed of recycled aluminum and zinc. The tiles are elevated two inches off the roof deck by strips of lumber so the building can “breathe” and so the attic stays cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

When Beijing hosts the 2008 Olympics, among the attractions visitors will be able to tour — in addition to going to the Games — is a community of houses from 10 different countries that incorporate the best

energy-efficient, sustainable building practices of their respective nations.

Dubbed the International Sustainable Energy

Community, the demonstration home project is one of the ways that China hopes to showcase itself to the world and gather ideas to tackle its own challenges of pollution and the resource demands of its growing middle class.

The facilitator of the U.S. home is George Bialecki Jr., 39, a suburban Chicago-area businessman who spends about four days a week in the Quad-Cities overseeing his A Plus Home Health Care business in Moline and the three energy-efficient senior living projects he has built in Moline: Amber Ridge, Arbor Village and Autumn Trails.

One might think an Olympics project would attract a big-name builder and have government backing, but that is not how it has worked, he said.

When China’s Ministry of Construction, a government agency, put out a call for builders to participate in the project, one of the people it contacted was Yong Xin Tao, a Chinese native who is a professor at Florida International University in Miami and a researcher in alternative energy utilization in building technology.

Tao, in turn, contacted Bialecki, whom he had met through their mutual work in alternative energy. Bialecki’s Moline facilities incorporate many energy-efficient, sustainable building practices, including geothermal energy systems for heating and cooling and streets made of permeable pavers so stormwater runoff infiltrates the ground on-site rather than running downstream into the city’s storm sewer system.

“He’s kind of the one we settled on,” Tao said of Bialecki. “He has built communities that (incorporate) all aspects of sustainability. He is leading-edge.”

Tao will be a consultant to Bialecki, and the two traveled to China in October to sign a 60-page agreement committing them to the project.

Bialecki hopes to have his 3,000-square-foot home built in the summer of 2007, but he first needs to drum up sponsorships — about $2 million in cash or in-kind materials — to pay for it. He has just finished the packet he will present to various businesses who already have a presence in China, including Deere & Co., Caterpillar, Alcoa, The Home Depot, Motorola and Starbucks.

He is confident the money will be raised and has no specific deadline.

Bialecki also is putting some personal money into the project, but he declined to say how much. The work will be facilitated through his nonprofit foundation called Alternative Energy Living Foundation.

Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

www.futurehouseusa.org

www.123aeb.com

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/061206/0190991.html