Put It On the Books: Syracuse's Marcellus Free Library Earns LEED Silver Honors

Syracuse and Buffalo, by reputation, are the de facto buckles on New York's rust belt. But while those two Western New York cities have shrunken mightily over the past few decades and almost never get any sun, there remain more green bright spots in both than their rusty-brown reputations would suggest. Buffalo, as we've discussed here in the past, is home to several interesting green buildings and seems to be emerging as a green-energy center; Syracuse has a surprisingly long history of sustainability and the university is doing a lot of research into <strike>replacing point guard Jonny Flynn</strike> new and more efficient building systems. What Syracuse didn't have, besides a reputation that matches its sustainability, was a LEED-certified building. That has now changed, thanks to the LEED Silver honors bestowed on Syracuse's Marcellus Free Library. It's the first LEED-certified building in the city, and in all of Onondaga County.

It's also a pretty impressive building in its own right, and a real achievement for Marcellus-based Lake Architectural. While it's not an architectural marvel -- it's a smallish-town public library, you were expecting Bilbao? -- it does include a suite of green design elements that range far into the unexpected. The emphasis on insulation, low-toxicity finishes and furniture and natural light are fairly par for the course; the geothermal heating and cooling and 16,200-watt solar array notably less so. Sunlight isn't necessarily easy to come by in Syracuse -- the city had just 164 sunny days in 2008 -- but every little bit helps. There's plenty of room for improvement, and apparently rising political will, in Western New York, and we'll keep our eye (well, my eye and Stephen's eye, so two rhetorical eyes and four actual eyes) on the goings on up there. Tips, of course, are also appreciated.