David L. Lawrence Convention Center gets good energy grade
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When the David L. Lawrence Convention Center opened in 2003 as the largest green building and the first LEED-certified convention center in the world, it set the bar high for energy savings, waste reduction and sustainable operations.
Three years ago, the Green Building Alliance asked for a study to find out how well it has done, and the Sports and Exhibition Authority, which owns it, and the Heinz Endowments together spent $225,000 for the results.
Highlights of the report were discussed Thursday at a conference in one of its great halls. The full report will be online Friday at www.go-gba.org/dlcc.
The performance analysis of the 1.5 million-square-foot building -- a $380 million project designed by architect Rafael Vigñoly -- is not complete with dollar savings, but percentages figured against expectation and sites in 13 benchmark cities are encouraging.
"We are consistently at or above average," said Christine Mondor, a principal at evolve environment::architecture, one of the firms that investigated the energy systems, operations, maintenance, uses, materials, marketing, transportation initiatives and visitor satisfaction.
Energy use has been 16 percent lower than originally expected and includes a reduction of 333,000 kilowatt hours per year as a result of the natural ventilation system, she said.
Because of the use of natural light in the design, the lighting system has less work to do and accounts for 26 percent of energy use.
The water audit revealed that treatment and recycling of toilet wastewater back into toilet use reduces demand for fresh water in the building by 80 percent.
"Pretty remarkable," said Alan Traugott, a principal at CJL Engineering.
The center is recycling half of its other water use, he said.
Thirty-eight percent of revenues since 2006 have come from green-specific events and brought $144 million in direct spending to the region. Further, almost one fourth of the convention market wants green venues, a demand that's up by 4.5 percent each year.
Mark Leahy, the convention center's general manager, called the study "the most extensive that's been done" among convention centers and, to audience laughter, likened it to "having people open all your doors, look in all your closets and at all your dirty laundry and then have a public meeting to tell everyone about it."
First Published November 13, 2011 12:00 am
