David Zucker is shining light on a super-energy efficient condo community with a $20 million development near Coors Field.

Zucker says it will cost buyers less to purchase solar photovoltaic systems for their units than to buy them without the PV systems.

An innovative deal with Countrywide Lending will give buyers with the roof-mounted, two-kilowatt PV systems a quarter percent break on 30-year mortgages. That interest rate cut, combined with electrical savings, tax credits, and rebates from Xcel Energy, would mean an estimated savings of $417 a year for someone who buys a unit with the system than without one.

Zucker, a principal of Zocalo Community Development, will break ground on the 60-unit 2020 Lawrence project early next year. Twenty of the units, which range in price from $290,000 to the mid-$800,000s, already have sold.

"I think it sounds great," said Amy Ellsworth, energy division director for the Center For Resource Conservation, a non-profit group based in Boulder.

"It's very innovative," she added. "I can't imagine a buyer not taking the solar option."

In addition, Zucker will be installing a 50,000-watt PV system that will produce enough energy to power all of the common areas at 2020 Lawrence.

This is Zucker's second green infill development.

His $17.4 million, 60-unit RiverClay development under construction in the Jefferson Park neighborhood at 2195 Decatur St., will be the first condo project in the Rocky Mountain region to get a silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) designation from the U.S. Green Building Council, he said.

2020 Lawrence will also be a silver LEED and also will be the first condo community in the region to receive a Near-Zero Energy Home designation, Zucker said.

Although the developments are "green," they will not produce a lot of green for him.

Other green developers, from John Keith at Harvard Communities, to Mark Meiser at Meiz Development, have also found that to be the case.

"It's not like I spend an extra $30,000 on energy features to make $40,000 — it's more like I spend the extra money and I lose $10,000," said Meiser, on a recent tour of green townhomes he built on the 2500 block of West 43rd Avenue.

"I do it because it is the right thing to do," Meiser said.

That's a philosophy shared by Zucker.

"I want to be as gentle to the earth as possible," Zucker said.

In addition to solar, the 2020 development will be full of energy saving and sustainable features, such as using wool carpets that don't produce "off-gas" the way most synthetic carpets do; will use low volatile organic paints and adhesives, which eliminates that harmful "new home" smell; and he will try to recycle about two thirds of the construction waste at the site.

Zucker is even doing something about the 15 percent to 22 percent of the electricity in a typical home that is generated by things that are plugged in, even when not being used, such as TVs, toasters, and cell-phone chargers and other "energy vampires."

He will install a screen in each home that will show where the energy is coming from that will have a switch to turn off non-essential items, when the residents are not at home.

"It is like the screen in my Prius," which displays mileage and how much of the energy is coming from the battery or the engine, Zucker said.

"It's great to have all of these features, but what we really have to encourage is having people make habitual changes," Zucker said.

Ellsworth, of the Boulder group, said that is an impressive feature that she hopes other developers will embrace.

"It will have a great impact to have the kind of visual," she said. "And he's taking it to the next step by having a switch."

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207