RCCC’s Building 400 Achieves LEED Gold Certification
Yates Chreitzberg Hughes Architects is proud to announce their newest achievements in Green Building. Building 400 on the Rowan Cabarrus Community College North Campus, located in Salisbury, North Carolina has been awarded a LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building council. This prestigious rating is the second highest rating obtainable and Building 400 is one of only three new construction projects in our area to achieve this status.
LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and environmental Design, is the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) rating system, created in 2001 to standardize sustainable building. LEED has 7 different categories in which to gain points:
- Sustainable Site Design
- Water Efficiency
- Energy & Atmosphere
- Materials & Resources
- Indoor environmental Quality
- Innovation in Design Process
There are 4 different certifications that a building can receive based on the amount of points it receives.
- Certified 26 – 32 points
- Silver 33 – 38 points
- Gold 39 – 51 points
- platinum 52 to 69 points
YCH’s Building 400 met the qualifications to achieve a staggering 39 points and was recently awarded all of them. On June 22, 2011 the USGBC finally announced that this state of the art facility for RCCC’s North Campus had been awarded the LEED Gold seal.
This 39,000 square foot building will house the medical science programs as well as police training for RCCC. Some of the specialty areas include general purpose classrooms, training areas for Fire and EMS, Nursing aide classrooms, as well as a phlebotomy training room. The police officer training facility includes a state of the art aerobics studio and weight training area for public training, and a mock jail cell for police training.
YCH is extremely pleased that their local firm was able to provide their community with such a great resource, both for today and for the future generations of graduates from the RCCC programs, and is always looking to move forward using this building as a stepping stone to better sustainable building practices.
RCCC Building 400 Sustainable Statistics:
- 61,352 gallons of water saved each year
- 876,348 gallons of irrigation water saved during the first year
- 2,581 million BTU or $14,123 of energy savings which is 21% over code requirements
- 100% of all land clearing debris was recycled
- 74% or 217 tons of all waste from construction was also recycled
- 33% of all materials were manufactured within a 500 mile radius
- 76% of all wood is Forest Stewardship Certified
- 100% of all sealants, adhesives, paints, and coatings are low to no VOC’s
- 100% of all plywood and particle board contain no added area urea-formaldehyde
