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Reaching the specifiers

Grimes Asphalt and Paving Corp., of Grimes, IA, has become a leading marketer and builder of porous asphalt pavements in their state. The firm built its first porous asphalt pavement - a nature trail in suburban Des Moines - in 2004. Since then, Grimes Asphalt has installed seven porous asphalt projects, says Stephen Moyna, a project manager at the firm.

Customers for porous asphalt are both public agencies and private businesses. Grimes Asphalt's first project was built for the Metro Waste Authority's Regional Collection Center in Bondurant, IA. The next was a parking lot for Luther Park Center, an assisted care center in Des Moines. The customer was a private developer.

"We had done other standard paving projects for this developer," says Moyna. "They had heard that Grimes was doing porous asphalt, and they wanted to be environmentally friendly. So we assisted with the design and construction of the parking facility. Then we put up a sign at Luther Park that graphically illustrates how porous pavement works."

Other Grimes customers are the Polk County Conservation Board, a high school, the Central Iowa Expo (an agricultural trade fair), a manufacturing firm, and a new townhome developer.

The townhome project is noteworthy because the porous asphalt drive, through the center of the development, allowed the developer to build one or two more townhomes instead of taking the space for a storm water retention facility. "That made it feasible for the developer to build the project," says Moyna.