This is the first in a two-part series. It will continue next week.
Maryland has 28 officially eco-friendly buildings – including three that have met the most stringent industry standards. But with 284 more projects registered to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification in the next few years, it’s clear this is a booming trend.
In Frederick County, for example, only one nonresidential building — the Fannie Mae Urbana Technology Center — has been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers the LEED program. Yet at least eight more projects are in the pipeline for certification, including BP Solar’s expansion in Frederick and The Lucy School in Middletown.
If all are certified, Frederick County could boast more than 850,000 million square feet of environmentally friendly nonresidential space in the next few years. Several commercial centers and a winery’s tasting room are also registered to meet the certification criteria upon completion. And this does not include many new eco-friendly home models that more residential developers are offering.
Commercial developers are seeking out LEED certifications to prove to both customers and the community that the buildings are as Earth-friendly as possible. As interest in LEED is exploding, the U.S. Green Building Council, which developed the rating system in 2000, has been trying to fine tune the standards and provide more educational resources for developers.
Green buildings can be more expensive to construct and buy, but they can also boost the owner’s bottom line in the long run, according to the council. Since LEED’s launch, more than 14,000 projects worldwide have achieved one of the four levels of the certification.
‘‘The building industry is changing,” said Peter Templeton, the council’s senior vice president of research and education. ‘‘We are no longer designing and constructing buildings in the same way we have always done.”
Three platinum buildingsin Maryland
In downtown Silver Spring, Discovery Communications’ 540,000-square-foot headquarters was retrofitted to achieve platinum certification — the highest level — in December. Discovery’s initiatives included revamping the lighting to fluorescent bulbs, carefully timed heating, ventilation and air conditioning use, and capturing and reusing water in its outdoor gardens. In all, the company says its efforts have saved it more than 24,000 gallons of water annually and reduced carbon emissions by more than 260 tons a year.
The Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis and Highland Beach Town Hall have also scored platinum ratings. The three buildings are among only 62 in the nation so far to have won the top certification.
In Urbana, Fannie Mae’s 220,000-square-foot data center, which secured the fourth rating, was the first data center in the nation to be LEED-certified and has served as a model for others seeking green status, said facility manager Frank Butler. The mortgage giant focused on features such as larger windows near employees, employee showers for round-the-clock shifts and proximity to public transportation.
Fannie Mae’s employee parking lot has stations that could recharge battery-operated cars in the future. The exhaust reducing urea system for six massive generators did not earn LEED points, but its façade of locally made bricks did. The eco-friendly features cost Fannie Mae roughly 10 percent more than conventional designs, Butler said, which is roughly what most developers must pay upfront to go green.
From vineyards to schools, many joining green parade
In Mount Airy, new Black Ankle winery owners Ed Boyce and Sarah O’Herron want to snag the platinum benchmark for their 11,000-square-foot tasting room set to open in mid-July. With straw bales packed into walls as insulation, plants lined along its rooftop to manage storm water and construction wood harvested from the 145-acre property, the couple still struggle with some criteria, O’Herron said.
The small winery and vineyard, tucked in a valley in an agricultural area, has little hope of getting points for being within a half-mile of public transportation or having a bike rack. ‘‘We’re more inclined to put in a horse post – that’s the kind of area we’re in,” O’Herron said. ‘‘But you don’t get points for that.”
But Black Ankle is compensating with points for innovative features such as its use of on-site wood. O’Herron is optimistic that it will score a platinum rating this year, making it the first building in Frederick County to meet LEED’s most stringent standards.
‘‘It’s a fairly long list. LEED’s designed for big companies, for a place with like 500 employees, and not all [criteria] translate for a smaller business,” O’Herron said. ‘‘But we feel like we meet the spirit of platinum. We’re really out to use as much as we have here.”
The Lucy School in Middletown is also aiming for platinum certification and will likely be the first LEED-certified school in Frederick County. Victoria Brown and her husband, Christopher Zachariadis, own the private school that runs through second grade. They plan to use the new, LEED-certified building for the older children.
The two-story building, tucked into a hill, is to feature a geothermal system, solar panels and a mirror system to draw in more natural light. Brown and Zachariadis sank roughly 10 percent more into the 6,500-square-foot project, anticipating returns on energy savings.
Set to open in the fall, The Lucy School will also have solar panels, a geothermal system and a rainwater filtration system. It is being constructed of stone from Bethesda and wood from Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, a Frederick County Public School project, the Earth and Space Science Lab at Lincoln Elementary in Frederick, had registered for LEED certification but recently withdrew after directors realized it could not meet the standards without incurring additional costs.
Director Jeff Grills said despite 100 solar panels donated by BP Solar of Frederick and a geothermal system, ‘‘We’ve taken it off the table.” The $5 million, 10,624-square-foot lab center broke ground recently.
Going green Web site
The U.S. Green Building Council relaunched its Web site for educational tools on the green building movement June 3. The new site — www.greenbuild365.org — has online courses as well as podcasts and videos from the council’s annual Greenbuild Conference and Expo events.
