Michaels' La Crosse Office earns LEED® Gold
La Crosse, WI - June 7, 2010 -
Michaels Engineering's La Crosse office in the historic Doerflinger Building
has achieved Gold certification under the USGBC's LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI)
rating system.
Michaels' office is the first
project in the Coulee Region awarded LEED Gold certification, as well as the
first project in western Wisconsin certified under the LEED CI rating system.
"We did not set out to achieve a specific level of LEED certification," said
Dave Waffenschmidt, president of Michaels Engineering. "Using the LEED
checklist as a guide, we simply pursued those green features that made economic
sense, increased the quality of the office environment for our employees, or
helped fulfill our corporate commitment to environmental responsibility."
Sustainable features include:
Downtown
location with access to public transportation
Bicycle
storage and a shower/changing room
Views
to the outdoors for more than 95% of the occupants
Nearly
a 50% reduction in potable water use
Optimized
HVAC and lighting systems, including daylighting
Reuse
of office furniture
Green
cleaning policy
Michaels has provided the
engineering design for a total of five LEED projects, all certified Gold.
They have also provided energy consulting or LEED facilitation services for
another 10 projects at various stages of the design or certification process.
About LEED
LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification
system, providing third-party verification that a building or community
was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across
all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2
emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of
resources and sensitivity to their impacts.
Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building
owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing
practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and
maintenance solutions.
