LV builders seek greener pastures

A new KB Homes model at Shadow Springs shows the new landscape options.

By Ian Mylchreest

IanM@LVPress.com

  Home builders in the valley have not been saying too much about it, but they have spent the last few months getting ready for regulations which   came into effect last Thursday, which severely limit the use of turf in all new homes. Front yards in all new construction cannot have any turf and   rear yards are limited to 50 percent turf.

  Homebuilders have responded in two ways to the new restrictions. They have rolled out new options in xeriscape for their homes and taken the   once unthinkable step of creating green spaces with synthetic turf.

  Without much fanfare, Pulte Homes has recently added FieldTurf as an option for buyers of its new homes. The company's Nevada Vice President   for Construction Nat Hodgson was so impressed that he installed the product at his own home. He says there is nothing to compare with green,   and that FieldTurf is the only product in the market that works in landscaping. "It's like comparing a Lexus and a Yugo," he says, "and it's expensive,   but we wanted the best for our customers."

  Hodgson estimates that the synthetic turf option will be priced at about $8 per square foot. He says that the average front yard requires 1,500 square feet.

  The impending ban on real turf was an even more pressing issue for Michael Hackney because much of his business at Valley Sod Farms had been built on supplying real grass to major developers and their   landscapers. Around August, he says, he started to investigate other products because the writing was on the wall for new turf in landscaping.

  The current restrictions are responding to the drought, but Hackney thinks they will be a permanent feature of water use in the valley. Southern Nevada Water Authority spokesperson Tracy Bower says the   various jurisdictions have made the restrictions part of their code and so it will be up to them to remove the restrictions.

  With the restrictions looming, Hackney says he realized he had to start examining new products, and so he looked at synthetic alternatives to sod. After looking at the alternatives, he found two things. "The   products today are not the Astroturf of the 1970s, and the best of them now on the market is FieldTurf," he says.

  He and Frank Strnad hold two of the three FieldTurf franchises in Nevada and they have decided to work as a joint venture, FieldTurf of Nevada. Hackney is focusing on sales and marketing and Strnad is   supervising installation and customer service.

  FieldTurf has provided not just a landscaping product, but has laid out the playing surface on some of the best known stadiums in the country. The Seattle Seahawks, the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers and 11 other NFL teams play on FieldTurf. IT has also been used in numerous major college stadiums such as Husky Stadium at the University of Washington and Kansas State's Wagner Field.

Unlike most synthetic turf, FieldTurf was not designed or manufactured by carpet manufacturers, and it cannot be laid directly over garden surfaces. It is laid over a bed of small (less than 3/4 inch) rocks which allows it to drain. The material is sewn together, and is stabilized by a covering of "synthetic earth" -- the company's patented mixture of smooth silica sound and rubber granules and Nike Grind, which is made of re-ground athletic shoe material.

The product was first developed for tee boxes where the wear-and-tear on a golf course is heaviest, and Hackney found that a big selling point. "I first saw it in a golf magazine and thought that if it was good enough to play golf on, then it would be good enough to use in landscaping," he says.

The product is made from polyethylene with a series of graduated fibers depending on the look that is wanted or the use of the playing surface. It has been used for eight years and so far, according to Hackney, it has not worn out anywhere. "It could be as long as 15 years before it eventually degrades," he says.

Unlike traditional Astroturf, it needs no repainting or other maintenance. "We just rake it with lawn rakes to make the blades stand up if they get pushed down," he says.

Hodgson cites the longevity and the lack of maintenance as reasons he chose FieldTurf for the Pulte's options package. Despite the heavy initial investment, he says the money should be recouped in two to three years with savings on water and lawn maintenance.

FieldTurf of Nevada recently installed 60,000 square feet of its synthetic turf at Pulte's model village at Anthem Highland. It was used for common space as well as front and rear yards in models at all price points. One home even has a synthetic putting green.

SNWA figures suggest that each square foot of desert landscaping or synthetic turf replacing the real thing will save 55 gallons of water.

Hackney's biggest problem so far has been to get potential customers over the psychological barriers created by the bad reputation for the old synthetic grass surfaces. "People remember seeing players on TV sliding across sheets of water," he says, "but this is something completely different."

The product is not available in stores and requires specialized installation. That also adds to cost, and Hackney expects that most starter homes will use the cheaper xeriscape options, but he is talking to several home builders who are about to cross the psychological barrier that has prevented use of syntethic turf before the current crisis.

Only Summerlin's code still prevents the installation of synthetic turf, but some sources suggested that Summerlin is likely to approve specific products for use in its subdivisions. Hodgson says Pulte has approved FieldTurf for all neighborhoods where it controls the masterplan, and Summerlin is the only exception.

Desert landscape options have long long gone beyond the one or two cactus standing in a sea of rock. Groundcovers and desert shrubs along the banks of a dry river bed are now much more typical and lanscapers are offering a variety of flowering plants.

KB Homes Southern Nevada Marketing Director Bonnie Hernandez says her company has been working for six or eight months on new options for a future without real turf. The company's Shadow Springs homes have offered both xeriscape and syntethic turf for the last three months, she says.

This regulation overturns the long-held conventional wisdom in the homebuilding industry that new subdivisions will not sell if they only have xeriscape or desert landscaping. Hodgson suggests that is why he and other builders have finally embraced synthetic turf. "This is a paradigm shift," he says. "We wanted to do the right thing, and this is the better system."