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The Proximity Hotel, located in Greensboro, NC, is the first Platinum LEED certified hotel in the United States. Opened in 2007, This 147-room hotel has over 5,000 square feet of meeting and event space as well as a full-service restaurant. Recognized as the greenest hotel in America, the hotel utilized more than 70 sustainable practices during construction.

History
Proximity Hotel and it's attached restaurant, Print Works Bistro, are named for two cotton mills in Greensboro. These mills were part of Cone Mills, with more than a century of history in the textile industry. Cone Mills was known as the world's largest manufacturer of denim fabric and the United States' largest printer of home-furnishings fabrics. Started by two brothers with a background in wholesale groceries, Cone grew steadily throughout its early years, concentrating on the manufacture of denim for work clothes.

Cone Mills was founded by Moses and Ceasar Cone. They were the two eldest sons of a Baltimore wholesale grocery merchant, Herman Cone, who had immigrated to the United States from Bavaria in the 1840s, changing his name from Kahn to what he considered a more American spelling. In their teens, Cone's sons worked with him in his store. By 1876, the business had expanded to include tobacco and leather goods, and Moses and Ceasar had begun to travel the Southeast, taking orders from merchants for their father's goods.

In their travels, the brothers had an opportunity to observe the textile industry of the South. Beginning in the late 1880s, the Cones made investments in three Southern cotton mills. All three of these factories used outmoded equipment to produce coarse, low quality plaids and sheeting. The fabrics enjoyed a vogue as a result of their low cost, yet in competition with the products of more modern Northern mills, they sold slowly.

Convinced that there was a glut of coarse plaids on the market, the Cone brothers persuaded their own business partners, as well as other Southern mill owners, to diversify their offerings. The Cones assigned brand names to key products, and published guarantees of quality. With these steps, sales began to rise. By 1890, the Cones had convinced 38 of the roughly 50 southern mill owners that they could benefit from hiring a selling agency to market their products.

The Cone brothers vowed to go into the fabric production business themselves. Their plans to build two mills, one for denim and one for flannel, were delayed by a financial panic in 1893, but within two years, the Cones had moved ahead, constructing a denim mill on land they owned in Greensboro, North Carolina. Since the plant was near its supply of raw materials, the cotton fields of the South, the Cones named their new factory the Proximity Cotton Mill, and set up a holding company for this plant and the others in which they held an interest called the Proximity Manufacturing Company. In 1896, the first lengths of fabric rolled off the big looms at Proximity. Ceasar Cone felt that denim, a sturdy fabric for use in work clothes, would be in constant demand as the United States expanded and industrialized.

Just three years later, the Cones opened Revolution Mills, a modern facility to weave soft cotton flannel. In 1902, a second denim plant was under construction. Called White Oak, it was named for the enormous tree that grew on its site. With ten different warehouses for cotton and its own power plant, the mill began turning out indigo blue denim by 1905. Moses Cone died at age 51 in 1908, and his brother carried on the company, opening a fourth mill, the Proximity Print Works, in 1912. This facility was designed to "finish" or print cotton with multiple colors, creating a type of cotton product new to the South.

More than just a workplace, the Cone mills became an entire world for their employees, who were cared for in a paternalistic, and some would say totalitarian, system by the mill owners. The Cones built housing near their mills, both boarding houses and single family homes, which made up segregated Cone villages. Stores sold dairy products and meat produced on company farms. For each village, the company built a school and donated land for churches. Two mill YMCAs were built to provide outlets for recreation, and the company also instituted a Welfare Office, with social workers and nurses to look after its employees.

By 1913, the Proximity Manufacturing Company owned all or half interests in seven cotton production facilities. In 1915, the company began to produce denim fabric for Levi's jeans, opening up an important new market. With the coming of World War I in 1914, Cone products continued to be in demand, both by the Allies overseas, and then, after 1917, by the American armed forces.

With the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, the Cones refrained from any further expansion throughout most of the 1930s. The company did introduce two new cotton fabrics, a light-weight flannel called "flannelette," and a crepe called "Proximity Plisse." Despite the popularity these products enjoyed, the company was forced to curtail production at its plants as the Depression wore on. In a move that would bode well for the future, however, Cone introduced "deeptone" denim in 1936, a smoother, darker indigo fabric that was designed to appeal to wearers more than the earlier, rougher fabrics.

With the American entry into World War II, wartime production goals were implemented. In addition to an accelerated output of denim, Cone found itself producing such unfamiliar items as camouflage cloth, tent cloth, and osnaburg, for use in sandbags.

On the first day of 1948, Proximity's president announced that the company would change its name to Cone Mills Corporation. Further expansion followed this switch.

The competitive world textile industry caused the company to begin making cutbacks in the late 1970s, and it moved to diversify its product mix in order to maintain profitability. Such founding pillars of the company as the Proximity Cotton Mills and Print Works, the Revolution Mill, and the Minneola Mill shut their doors. Despite resurgence in the popularity of denim with the baby boomers, Cone Mills found itself unable to thrive in the wake of rising raw material costs, narrowing profit margins, and the changing global marketplace. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the fall of 2003 and was acquired by WL Ross & Co. the next spring. Cone Mills now operates as part of International Textile Group which also includes former competitor Burlington Industries.

The historic marker for Proximity is located about three miles east of Proximity Hotel on Wendover Avenue at Church Street.

Sustainable Practices
This green, eco-friendly hotel uses 41% less energy than a conventional hotel/restaurant by using ultra efficient materials and the latest construction technology.
 * The sun’s energy heats hot water with 100 solar panels covering the 4,000 square feet of rooftop (enough hot water for a hundred homes). This heats around 60% of the water for both the hotel and restaurant.
 * 700 linear feet of stream was restored by reducing erosion, planting local, adaptable plant species and rebuilding the buffers and banks. Approximately 700 cubic yards of soil was removed to create a floodplain bench. And 376 tons of boulders and 18 logs were used to maintain grade control, dissipate energy and assist in the creation and maintenance of riffles and pools.
 * The bistro bar is made of salvaged, solid walnut trees that came down through sickness or storm and room service trays made of Plyboo (bamboo plywood).
 * Newly-engineered variable speed hoods in the restaurant uses a series of sensors to set the power according to the kitchen's needs and adjusts to a lower level of operation (typically 25% of their full capacity). The sensors also detect heat, smoke or other effluents and increase the fan speed to keep the air fresh.
 * Geothermal energy is used for the restaurant’s refrigeration equipment, instead of a standard water-cooled system, saving significant amounts of water.
 * North America's first Regenerative Drive model of the Otis' Gen2 elevator reduces net energy usage by capturing the system’s energy and feeds it back into the building’s internal electrical grid.
 * Abundant natural lighting, including large energy-efficient “operable” windows (7’4” square windows in guest rooms), connects guests to the outdoors by achieving a direct line of sight to the outdoor environment for more than 97% of all regularly occupied spaces.
 * Building materials with recycled content include reinforced steel with 90% post consumer recycled content, sheetrock 100%, asphalt 25% and staircase steel 50%. Concrete contains 4% fly ash (224,000 pounds), the mineral residue left after the combustion of coal that is diverted from landfills.
 * 87% of construction waste was recycled, diverting 1,535 tons of debris from landfills.
 * Water usage has been reduced by 33% by installing high-efficiency Kohler plumbing fixtures, saving two million gallons of water the first year.
 * Air quality improved by circulating large amounts of outside air into guestrooms (60 cubic feet per minute) and doing so in an energy efficient way by employing “energy recovery” technology where the outside air is tempered by the air being exhausted.
 * Regional vendors and artists were used for materials to reduce transportation and packaging.
 * Low-emitting volatile organic compound (VOC) paints, adhesives, carpets, etc reduces indoor air contamination.
 * Guestroom shelving and the bistro’s tabletops are made of walnut veneer, over a substrate of SkyBlend, a particleboard made from 100% post-industrial recycled wood pulp with no added formaldehyde.
 * A green, vegetated rooftop will be planted on the restaurant to reduce the “urban heat island effect.” In other words, the green roof reflects the heat, thus reducing the amount of energy needed for refrigeration and/or air conditioning. It also slows the rain runoff and insulates the rooftop, keeping the building cooler overall. Currently, we trying out various plants on the roof in a test area.
 * “Education Center” for sustainable practices includes tours of our "green" hotel for guests, sustainable practices symposia, and outreach programs for students of all ages.
 * Bicycles are available for guests to ride on the nearby five-mile greenway.

External links and references

 * "Proximity Hotel"
 * "Print Works Bistro"
 * "Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants and Hotels"