Green gets beyond buildings with LEED-ND pilot program in Portland

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Jul 16, 2007 by Alison Ryan

Pearl District condominium towers. An affordable homes project in Northeast Portland. An art museum-adjacent "vertical neighborhood." A yet-to-be-built luxury apartment high-rise along the Park Blocks. Totally different projects - but common elements like easy transportation access and close services got them all into the LEED for Neighborhood Development pilot program, which the U.S. Green Building Council will kick off this week.

"You can have a tower or an 800-acre development," said Terry Miller, who's heading Portland consulting firm Green Building Services' new LEED-ND business unit. "Both can get certified."

The LEED-ND pilot, which will include about 300 participants nationwide, is a more comprehensive look than existing LEED certification programs for buildings and interiors. Smart, environmentally conscious, infrastructure-related development is rewarded. Prerequisites include close public transportation, use of an infill or previously developed site, and nearby services like stores, schools, banks and restaurants.

"If you do any infill development that has services that are walkable and has access to transportation, you will do well in LEED- ND," Miller said.

In Portland, where access to public transportation is notable and many potential building sites are part of already-existing neighborhoods, developers have seized the chance to participate in the pilot. Ladd Tower, a 23-story under-construction apartment building in the South Park Blocks, is in, as is Eliot Tower, the glass-and-metal condominium building that stretches up next to Portland Art Museum. A Hoyt Street Properties entry includes all of its Pearl District efforts, such as the Metropolitan and Hoyt Yards.

And in Northeast Portland, Host Development's Helensview project will be part of the pilot as well. The housing mix includes 40 single-family houses, 12 condominiums and a home that already existed on the property. The decision to enter the project in the LEED for Homes program, said assistant project manager Devin Culbertson, came first. LEED-ND, he said, was almost an afterthought.

"How much LEED do you need? But then, we decided to take a look," he said. "We were blown away when we started going through and realizing everything we were doing already fits in really well with the LEED stuff."

The site transforms a grayfield, is close to goods and services, and has sustainable site features like green streets and stormwater management. But access to transportation, Culbertson said, really pushed Host's decision to go for LEED-ND. The site at Northeast 64th Avenue and Killingsworth Street is served by TriMet's No. 72 bus line, which connects business centers along 82nd Avenue, Clackamas Town Center, the MAX line and Swan Island.

"This is the perfect line," he said. "So many of the transit lines connect to downtown, but we don't have a ton of buyers who are doing downtown work."

For Hoyt Street Properties, the decision to go for LEED-ND leaps off much of the sustainable work the developer's already done with its buildings, vice president of construction Doug Shapiro said.

"Just starting this process," he said, "we're probably silver- certified without too much energy."

Like those of other USGBC programs, LEED-ND ratings will range from certified to platinum based on how well it meets criteria for sustainable development.

Hoyt Street's tying its effort into amping the sustainability of the entire Pearl District. Shapiro's working with consultants and the Portland Development Commis-sion on the possibility of creating a Pearl energy district, a centrally located plant that would provide heating and cooling to the neighborhood.

A feasibility study is in the works.

Feedback from the pilot participants will be used to revise the system for its official release in 2009. Ultimately, Green Building Services' Miller said, the LEED-ND program could become a framework for governments to encourage smart development.

"This is almost a model ordinance," he said.