LEED™ Certification for Educational Projects

We have done several projects for LEED™ certification. The St. Stephen's Episcopal K-8 School is anticipating a final rating of LEED Silver. Other projects for municipalities have resulted in applications for LEED Gold.

While many of our "green" educational projects have not been LEED™ Certified at this time, the Wellsboro Area High School was designed to the LEED Silver standard. The building uses geothermal wells for heating and cooling. Large multistory corridors provide daylighting through use of an upper clerestory that also serves as an integral part of the air exchange system.

The Big Spring Middle School also has several "green" features, focused primarily on HVAC systems. Built originally using existing oil fired boilers and a new cooling tower to service a new water source heat pump system, this project will now also use geothermal wells for its heating and cooling systems that will be shared with the elementary school currently under construction on the same campus. Humidity control is provided through a series of McQuaid ERVs supplied by a bank of water to water heat pumps. A large part of the financing for both the elementary and middle schools was facilitated through an ESCO program which allows school districts to fund projects based on operational cost savings in the years following project completion.

Other projects in our portfolio have LEED Certification of Silver or above. With five LEED accredited professionals on staff, we see green design as a common-sense basis for good design in general. Many green features are easily implemented and can be financially justified through reduced operational costs. Most projects can benefit from green design without the additional expense of LEED Certification requirements and Building Commissioning. As a corporate member of the USGBC since 2000, while we believe in the LEED program for buildings, we understand that individual situations of clients and their own missions and goals will determine the degree to which green design features are implemented.