Fox Hill industrial building pioneers carbon capture tech

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Sudler Co. has christened Greenville’s 2.5-million-square-foot  Fox Hill Business Park with a 206,140-square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility, the property’s first completed project.

The developer also is pioneering another initiative through the project: a green construction process that captures carbon within concrete instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

CarbonCure technology, supplied by local producer Thomas Concrete, was recently reviewed by Bill Gates in a CBS 60-Minute interview, and is the lynchpin in the company’s plan to reduce 500 megatons of CO2 emissions from the construction industry by 2030, according to a news release.

"The largest companies in the world have been announcing their climate pledges — their environmental, social (and) governance commitments," Brian Sudler, principal of Sudler Co., said in the release. "We are proud to be the first developer utilizing CarbonCure concrete in South Carolina. We're not only dedicated to providing jobs and commercial growth to the state but are also committed to doing it in an environmentally responsible way."

Sudler Co. representatives said the Fox Hill Business Park will meet the burgeoning logistics market in the region while aligning itself with tenant-driven environmentally-friendly construction standards in response to the corporate green movement, according to the release.

“CarbonCure takes carbon dioxide, which is normally considered a harmful greenhouse gas, and we create value from that by using it in the production of concrete," Rob Niven, CEO of CarbonCure, said in the release. "The production of cement accounts for roughly 7% of CO2 emissions around the world; our technology repurposes the CO2 and permanently traps it inside the concrete."

CarbonCure recently won the five-year global NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize challenge for its carbon-capture products.

"With Sudler's new project in Fox Hill, it means more developers will not only realize that it's a high-quality product, but it also reduces their carbon footprint and makes companies more socially responsible when it comes to the environment," Alan Wessel, CEO of Thomas Concrete, said in the release.

McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, civil engineering firm SeamonWhiteside, and general contractor Pattillo Construction were also partners in Sudler's first building at Fox Hill. Sudler's Fox Hill Development is represented by NAI Earle Furman.