Last week, brand-new $611 million Nationals Park, home to the National League East’s Washington Nationals baseball club, officially received a LEED Silver rating from USGBC, becoming the first baseball stadium in the country to earn the designation. Just a scant few days before Major League Baseball’s 2008 Opening Day, the ballpark earned 33 LEED points for a design by HOK Sport that, among other things, respects the park’s location in Southeast adjacent to D.C.’s Anacostia River. So far, so good for the Nats at their new home; Ryan Zimmerman cracked a walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the club a 3-2 win over the Atlanta Braves in the first regular season game at the ballpark on Sunday night.
March 31st, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | ContinuedD.C.
Green Commercial Office Space in New York City Currently Ranks Third in U.S.
According to a report that was released last month by the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego, Los Angeles is first among U.S. cities when it comes to LEED- or Energy Star-certified commercial office space. The CoStar Group provided the data upon which the report was based and ranked cities by the total amount of their square footage that has earned either the LEED or Energy Star designation; no breakdown appears to be readily available that segregates the figures according to individual rating system. Los Angeles topped the list with 100 buildings and 26.2 million square feet while Houston checked in at #2 with 46 buildings and 21.1 million square feet; New York City was third with 11 buildings and 12.3 million square feet.
February 26th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Cromley Lofts: 1210 Queen Street, Alexandria, Virginia
Cromley Lofts in Alexandria is the State of Virginia’s first LEED-certified condominium development, a three-story, eight-unit adaptive reuse project that earned a Gold rating from USGBC after completion earlier this year. Many of my friends from law school live in Northern Virginia, so this was a particularly interesting project for me to hear about from [...]
October 12th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued
AIA’s DesignDC ‘07: Leading Design*
*Architects, designers, engineers, contractors and other Washington-area professionals with an eye for design headed to DesignDC 2007 on the 18th of July to discuss the theory, trends, tools, and technology needed to ensure and maintain industry leadership. This three-day, peer-to-peer, interactive conference and exhibit offered unparalleled access to cutting-edge information—delivered by some of design’s most [...]
July 31st, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Kettler Capitals Iceplex: Arlington, Virginia
The Washington Capitals’ new training center facility in Arlington, Virginia isn’t a stadium at all (it only seats 1,000 people), but I think it’s important to track the green building efforts of our professional sports teams. As I’ve written about before, green stadiums and arenas present unique design issues that aren’t sufficiently contemplated by LEED [...]
July 13th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Twins, HOK, and USGBC Look to Extend LEED to Stadiums
I’ve written previously about the new ballpark for the Nationals, which will seek LEED certification, and the proposed stadium for the Twins, whose design team is also exploring LEED options. An article in BD+C suggests that, because HOK Sport is the architect for each of these venues, the firm is working in concert with USGBC [...]
January 18th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Golden Gophers Look to Enter Race for Nation’s First LEED-Certified Stadium
Two stadium projects in the works have already announced that they’ll be seeking LEED certification- the Nationals’ new ballpark in D.C. and the Twins’ new park in Minneapolis. No stadium project to date has received any level of LEED recognition, but what looked to be a two horse race has received another entrant- also from [...]
January 11th, 2007 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Napa Valley Hotel Demonstrates Dangers to Developers Posed by LEED Creep
In the wake of the D.C. Council passing significant LEED legislation last week, there’s been substantial commentary about how positive the bill is for green building at large. While I agree that the legislation is certainly a step in the right direction, a recent post I wrote about the D.C. mandate describes what the BD+C [...]
December 19th, 2006 | Stephen Del Percio | 5 comments | Continued