Two Collin County buildings nab LEED Gold
Collin County Business Press
BY ALESHIA HOWE
June 28, 2010

Click to read the article at ccbizpress.com

Only a handful of Collin County buildings held a LEED Gold certification standard entering this summer, but a hard push into green development – namely by two Collin companies – has added two sizable buildings to the Gold standard mix.

Billingsley Property Services Inc., a division of Billingsley Co., announced the official certification of Plano’s first Gold LEED building located at 6100 Plano Parkway in International Business Park on June 24.

Developed by Billingsley Co. and designed by Lionel Morrison, 6100 Plano Parkway is the newest building at IBP. The three-story, 173,382-square-foot, $30 million building is one of 35 office and retail structures in the park. The building is situated on 12 acres just northwest of the Dallas North Tollway and President George Bush Turnpike.

LEED is a third-party certification and nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance Green buildings that was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2000. The 6100 Plano Parkway building is the first LEED certified Gold building in Plano and the second in the Dallas area.

“We are serious about reducing our carbon footprint,” said Lucy Paige Billingsley, a partner at Billngsley Co., in a statement. “Doing green right requires a great deal of upfront investment and diligence, but it is well worth it.”

The property surpassed the gold LEED requirements, earning 39 points instead of the required 34 necessary to achieve gold status.

Benefits of the building include 14 percent estimated savings in electrical costs, maximized efficiency of mechanical equipment, 35 percent renewable energy, filtered indoor air, and ventilation system monitoring that sustains occupant comfort. The building plan also saves water with an estimated 30 percent annual water reduction of about 380,000 gallons, site water drainage to planting areas, and landscaping with drought tolerant plants. Green commuters also are rewarded with designated parking for bikes and fuel-efficient vehicles. About 20 percent of building components are recycled materials and about 95 percent of construction waste was recycled.

IESI Gold LEED Certification

McKinney’s IESI Corp. received a Gold LEED Certification for its new Material Recovery Facility – a first for its kind in the nation.

The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design designation to IESI Corp. for the company’s privately funded, single-stream recycling facility in McKinney.

“LEED certification is not an easy task to achieve, especially for a manufacturing facility,” said Shawn Eiras, IESI McKinney district manager, in a release.

The 28,000-square-foot McKinney Mataerial Recovery Facility, or MRF, contains sustainable features, including certified wood, recycled steel, low-flow water fixtures and energy efficient machinery. Because the facility utilizes the single-stream process, customers can combine paper, glass, metals, cardboard and plastics all in one large container.

This is the second Gold LEED certified building on IESI’s books. In September 2009, IESI also obtained LEED Gold certification for its Seneca Meadows Environmental Education Center in Seneca Falls, New York.

“We are extremely proud to receive a Gold level certification from the USGBC for the McKinney MRF,” said John Gustafson, IESI Texas Region vice president, in a statement. “Not only is this project another example of our commitment to partnering with the communities we serve, but also a further demonstration of our commitment to environmentally sustainable initiatives.”