Kwame Building Group of St. Louis played a key role as program manager in helping St. Louis Community College achieve LEED Gold certification on its new Wildwood campus. The project received the certification this month.

The $18 million 75,000-square-foot St. Louis Community College Wildwood campus is the largest community college facility in the United States to receive U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification.

“Having KWAME as our full-time, on-site construction manager on a job of this size and complexity insured that the work progressed as it should and that all prerequisites were met to qualify for LEED,” said Carla Chance, vice chancellor of business and administration services at St. Louis Community College.

“Without question, KWAME was a key player in our LEED Gold accomplishment,” she said.

The new campus construction included high-tech classrooms, a science lab, faculty and administrative offices, an art studio, and a bookstore. The rooftop was planted with 4,000-square-feet of sedum, a drought-tolerant plant that reflects heat in the summer and insulates the building from cold in the winter. The facility will be 30 percent more energy efficient than a typical code-compliant building of the same size.

An article this week in the New York Times (January 27) reports that more than 800 buildings nationwide are lined up for LEED-EB certification, following the release of streamlined LEED-EB guidelines last October.

LEED-EB, which stands for LEED for Existing Buildings, is a three-year-old program by the U.S. Green Building Council that provides steps building owners and managers can take to operate and manage their properties more efficiently. Like LEED for new buildings, the program assigns points for efforts like recycling and indoor air quality, and offers four levels of certification.
According to the Green Building Council, more than 60 buildings, including the Adobe Towers in San Jose, Calif., the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., and the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, already have received LEED-EB  certifications, and 840 more are in the process of doing so, representing more than a half-billion square feet of space.

Source: New York Times

The Portland Cement Association predicts that portland cement consumption will be down until at least 2010, as the depressed housing market affects consumer spending and commercial construction.

In the long term, though, cement use is expected to grow by 43% to 183-million tonness by 2030, 55-million tonness more than 2005. Highway construction, which accounts for 30% of total annual cement consumption, is expected to add 400,000 new roadway miles by 2030. And if “green” building continues to grow, energy efficient insulated concrete walls could account for 30% of all new homes, up from 7% today. That growth alone could use an additional eight million metric tons of cement.

Source: ENR 

The US Green Building Council - St. Louis Regional Chapter is accepting abstracts for presentations at their fifth annual “Greening the Heartland Conference,” which will be held in St. Louis June 22 to 24. They’re looking for submissions from the architecture, building and planning fields, corporate policy makers and facility/real estate managers, green innovators on school campuses, public officials, planners, lawmakers and others involved in sustainable programs and processes.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is this Friday, January 11, 2008. For details, visit www.greeningtheheartland2008.org or call 1-866-933-4GRN.

In April, we reported that a total worldwide ban on incandescent light bulbs could save 470 million tons of CO2, more than half the reductions called for by the Kyoto Treaty.

Today, the U.S. takes action on that concept through an 822-page energy bill that Congress passed and delivered to the White House in a hybrid Toyota Prius, for President Bush’s signature.

The bill bans the famously inefficient incandescent light bulb by 2012 and puts tougher miles-per-gallon rules on new cars.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has projected that the bill will reduce energy use by 7 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 9 percent in 2030. The think tank also estimates that the bill will save consumers and businesses more than $400 billion between now and 2030, “accounting for both energy cost savings and the moderately higher price of energy-efficient products.”

Source: Building Design+Construction

Wellspring Development Company and Belcher Homes LLC, will break ground this month on Rock Hill Trails, billed as “the area’s first totally ‘green’ new home community.”

Located in Woodriver, Illinois, the development will feature about 290 single family homes, multi–family units, and neighborhood commercial properties. Rock Hill Trails will offer high-performance homes, open spaces with trails and nature corridors, and neighborhood amenities to support social interaction.

According to Wellspring, all homes in the development will conform to National Association of Home Builders Green Building Guidelines and will be eligible for LEED certification. Homeowners will be able to “up-green” with other energy savings and conservation features. The landscape plan will provide natural habitat for wildlife and native plant species.

Wellspring plans to begin home construction on Phase I by first quarter 2008.