LEED Construction in Nashville - Lessons learned and benefits reaped.

A look at the LEED design and construction process in Nashville.
An interview with Mike Cobb - Pre-Construction Manager for Solomon Builders’s soon to be LEED Certified, Multi-Use-Development - 5th and Main.

As sustainable construction practices move towards the mainstream, we talked with a project executive who has been through the LEED Process in Nashville. Mike Cobb, a 30 year veteran in building and construction planning, gave us his thoughts on the LEED certification process for the building site - “ 5th and Main”.



Q: How did you decide to pursue LEED certification for this project?
A:Mike Cobb: Regarding 5th and Main, We began pre-construction on this multi-use facility in 2005. At that time LEED certification and green buildings in general were a new trend. In fact, back then we only had one certified project in Nashville. But on this project we were working with the design team at Everton Olglesby Architects (EOA) that had several LEED accredited professionals. We naturally began to discuss sustainable design very early in the development stage. The owner along with the rest of the project design team saw the value in life-cycle-costs savings – such as operation and maintenance, that tenants would enjoy in the future. According to Ken Scalf, ( AIA of Architectural Energy Corporation and contributing consultant on the project), a projected payback for the incorporated sustainable strategies supporting LEED certification, would be approximately between 4-6 years, through reduced operational cost*.

Q: What challenges and disappointments did you find with the LEED process?
Mike Cobb: The major challenges we faced was the learning curve in understanding which members of the team were responsible for the numerous templates and other documents that had to be submitted. Then from a contractors standpoint we also had to monitor all phases of construction to make sure the right product and techniques were used to qualify for the LEED points we targeted. In this respect Solomon was fortunate to have Tiffany Wilmot as a member of the LEED waste team for Solomon. She was of great assistance in training and creative waste management techniques. As project architect, Sheila Dial, AIA of EOA Architects noted, it was Tiffany, who pushed the reuse and capture rate of on site waste up to 92% (achieving 2 LEED points). She was able to help the team achieve this recycle rate partly by re-using gypsum and delivering it to local area farmers. That is a phenomenal figure for a project of this size and scope.


Q: Does Solomon have plans to pursue LEED on other buildings?
Mike Cobb: We are working on at least (5) other projects presently that will seek LEED certification or at least be designed with all the sustainable elements to qualify for LEED certification. These LEED/sustainable approaches will become more common in the future and intensive management will not be such a big deal, but we did learn a great deal about the importance of process management on the 5th and Main project.

Q: What advice would you give a team going through that process now?
Mike Cobb: Study all requirements for certification thoroughly. Make sure you understand what contributions your firm expects to supply the project to achieve certification.

Q: Do you anticipate using the LEED process again?
Mike Cobb: Oh yes, we will do it on many, many projects in the future. When you stop to think about firms planning to bid on future projects - those who are LEED certified will certainly be at a competitive advantage compared with non-certified firms. We see a significant, growing demand for LEED certified projects in both public and private sectors in the future.

Special Thanks for this article goes to Gregg Turner, Marshall Shumate, Kristi Taylor, Merriam Osburn and Mike Cobb of (Solomon Builders) Nashville. Other contributions include Ken Scalf* of Architecture Energy Corporation, Shelia Dial of EOA Architects, and LEED Consultant Tiffany Wilmot.




Will Stack is a contributing editor to the newsletter of the US Green Building Council of Middle Tennessee. Will is an energy technology consultant and alumnae of Belmont University’s Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business. You can reach him at will.stack@gmail.com . Additional project pictures and LEED scorecard can be found at http://nashvillegreen.blogspot.com/.

Green Jobs in Nashville - Leader or Laggard?

Green Jobs and Sustainability in Middle Tennessee
An interview with Dodd Galbreath - Executive Director, Institute for Sustainable Practice, Lipscomb University

The economic downturn continues to take it’s toll as the U.S. unemployment rate grew to 8.5% in March. Still, in a recent address on the U.S. economy, President Obama expressed cautious optimism, saying that government actions taken so far are starting to show progress. Mr. Obama points to a boost in "green" jobs as one of the hopeful signs of recovery.

To get a local opinion on the outlook for green jobs in the Tennessee region, we spoke with Dodd Galbreath, Executive Director Lipscomb University‘s Institute for Sustainable Practice in Nashville, TN.

J&W: What is the mission of Lipscomb’s Institute for Sustainable Practice?

Mr. Galbreath: The mission is to advance sustainability as a profession but, not just in the professions of business but also in the professions of life. Part of the goal is to advance this new ethic, this revolution of sustainability -- that’s what everybody gets excited about. Ideally, we’d like to see TN become a green economy, so that green economic growth might also grow throughout the Southeast.

J&W: How do you measure success against these goals?

Mr. Galbreath: We start by looking at green job attainment and promotional advancement of our graduates . We would love to partner with state or other nonprofits to measure local and regional progress toward sustainability. The US labor department and TN Department of Labor have already written recent reports about emerging green job growth. One predicts the potential for 45,000 green jobs in TN. If you consider the VW plant in Chattanooga a green business, and I think you should, Governor Bredesen has already attracted over $3 billion in green business investments to the state. Other green businesses include the Dow -solar materials plant that’s going up in Clarksville and the German-owned silicon materials company, Wacker Chemie AG, in Bradley County.

J&W: In what areas to you see potential for job growth over the next decade? Where are the biggest opportunities related to sustainability?

Mr. Galbreath: I think entrepreneurship is the biggest opportunity. 20 years from now people may look back and say ‘I missed my opportunity to profit from green entreprenuership’ if they don’t take advantage of it now. Clean energy technology is going to continue to grow- as well as sustainability in the water sector.

Development will continue to get greener. You’ll see a lot more emphasis on horticulture and sustainable site design. Our landscapes and buildings have got to get spongier and forested. They can’t continue to be paved and hardened. We’ll have a mess if we don’t start to incorporate natural sponginess into our cityscapes. The new California Academy of science building is an excellent example of good design – from the air the building looks like a prairie and from the ground the landscape looks like a forest with an elevated prairie.

I also think biomimicry will lead to growth in the design field. Biomimicry studies nature’s best ideas and then uses the knowledge to address human opportunities. Jane Benyus has written the definitive book on the subject. There’s a good video on Youtube where she talks about the 12 characteristics of nature that can be used for fundamental biomimicry applications. The applications for biomimicry have no end because the creation represents an untapped abundance of inspired designs, not limits.

J&W: How does Tennessee compare to other states in the area of Green Jobs ?

Mr. Galbreath: I think we’re right on the cusp of becoming a green jobs regional leader but It could go either way right now. If we continue to invest in it, it will grow, but if we stop investing in it, it will regress. Right now most of the green jobs are on the coasts and overseas in Europe and other countries. Still, I believe TN could end up becoming the green job center for the Eastern United States because we’re such a unique state, we’ve got so much natural diversity to benefit from and to mimic in what we do. It’s an incredibly rich ecological environment.

J&W: What you think about the potential for sustainability, what excites you the most?

Mr. Galbreath: The most exciting technology is spongy buildings and landscapes because they do so much good. What if every neighborhood could be like a park, and if every home could be a garden of eden so to speak, where people could just relish in low maintenance, natural vegetation without having to mow, fertilize, and weed. We’re living crazy lives because we don’t stop to think how we can be more creative, how we can create a good life as opposed to tolerating a less bad life.

-Will Stack and Jim Giordano, CEM are contributing editors to the newsletter of the US Green Building Council of Middle Tennessee. Jim is a technology marketing and energy management professional. Will is an energy technology consultant. Both are graduates of Belmont University’s Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business. You can reach them at will.stack@gmail.com and jim.giordano@ymail.com.