Toll Road Company Unveils LEED Gold Building
The Indiana Toll Road Concession Co. is headquartered in Elkhart. (photo courtesy of the IRTCC)
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Toll Road Concession Co. has completed work on its new administration building in Elkhart, which is the state’s first LEED v4 Gold certified commercial office facility. The company, which is responsible for the construction, maintenance, repair and operation of the Indiana Toll Road, says the project is part of its efforts to ensure a high level of sustainability. Rachel Novick, associate professor of the practice at the University of Notre Dame and a sustainability consultant on the project, says the company took a very ambitious approach when it decided to achieve the Gold certification.
The building features a variety of amenities, including a large solar array that can generate 1,000 KWh, or about one-third of the building’s energy needs annually. The IRTCC says the interior space is designed to reduce paper use and allows for easy recycling of cans, bottles and electrical equipment.
Novick says the building demonstrates a combination of good building envelope design with a substantial commitment to renewable energy, as well as a strong commitment to open space and habitat restoration.
“It’s near a piece of the highway right-of-way, so the project site is quite large and it’s an area that’s been previously developed,” said Novick. “What ITR had the opportunity to do here was to restore the native prairie plants and recreate a habitat that’s in very short supply in Indiana; we always had very little prairie and most of what we had naturally is now gone. So creating prairie habitat supports native plants and animals that are a part of our heritage in Indiana but that many of us often just don’t see.”
The project also features smart HVAC systems, which the company says can reduce the energy needed to maintain the building’s temperature. Novick says the design of the building lends itself to a more comfortable workplace for employees.
“The building itself was designed with a lot of thought given to energy conservation. So the orientation of the building was really carefully selected to minimize the solar heat gain during the summer, while benefiting from the solar heat gain during the winter. All that’s to say that you get a building that’s both more comfortable to work in and more energy efficient. So I think that they’re really demonstrating to our region some of the very real, bottom line benefits of building a green building.”
While a number of buildings in Indiana have received Gold certifications in the past, such designations were awarded using the U.S. Green Building Council’s previous guidelines. The Gold certification for the ITRCC building comes under the council’s new “v4” LEED guidelines, which makes achieving the certification more challenging.
Novick says the certification could be a catalyst for future development.
“The fact that LEED v4 is so new, it means that most contractors and subcontractors, especially in this region of the country, don’t yet have experience with it and so everyone’s learning. It’s always hard to be at the forefront…but once people blaze a path, it makes it so much easier for everyone else to follow and so I think we’re going to continue to see increasingly ambitious green building projects in our region.”
One of the other main features of the project, according to Novick, is the retention pond near the solar array. She says intense rain events are expected to increase in the region, which can lead to flooding issues in many communities. The retention system on the property is designed to handle all intense rain events.
“Our new Administration Building is one part of our environmental efforts,” Nic Barr, chief executive officer of the IRTCC, said in a news release. “New salt domes reduce salt-runoffs during the winter, while our tree planting efforts have supported local carbon offset objectives. We have embraced the opportunity to act as local leaders, welcoming in members of the Green Building Council of Indiana and local business professionals to experience the features of our new building.”
The certification follows Indianapolis-based sustainable architecture and engineering firm Guidon Design Inc., whose headquarters became the first building in the state to receive the LEED v4 Platinum certification.
Novick says the company put a lot of effort in designing the building to earn the certification.
Novick says the certification could be a catalyst for future development.