The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Other schools in the district will get the same materials
When a group gathered to match the plan for the renovated Crested Butte Community School against the LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) certification checklist, it looked like the certification wasn’t quite up to the school’s standards.
The plan would earn points based on design elements that would reduce energy consumption or improve the environmental quality of the school. It needed 26 points to get the LEED certification that the Town of Crested Butte required. After the comparison was complete, the school got 31 points.
“There are a lot of entities that have bought points and I’m just glad we didn’t have to do that,” said school district superintendent Jon Nelson. “Some projects looking for a LEED certification don’t quite meet the standard and are forced to add pieces like parking spots for plug-in hybrid cars that don’t really make a lot of sense for us.”
At the District LEED and sustainability charrette held Friday, January 16, members of the district administration, staff members from Crested Butte Community School, representatives from the Blythe Group and Company and FCI Constructors Inc. and others discussed ways to make all of the district’s renovated buildings as efficient and sustainable as possible.
Crested Butte Community School was the only site where a LEED certification was required, but all of the sites will be Energy Star-rated, which is a federally backed program that sets energy efficiency standards that will affect the district’s bottom line for energy costs.
“The Energy Star rating is a better thing than LEED for the entire school district because it relates to energy efficiencies and reductions in energy costs,” says Nelson.
But the LEED certification at CBCS could improve the environmental quality of things such as paint, carpet and furnishings at all of the school sites.
According to Roy Blythe, owner of the Blythe Group, which is managing the project, all of the schools have been designed to the LEED checklist that was used at CBCS, to give all of the sites equity in the materials being used.
“Using the same materials at all of the sites has several advantages, one of which being cost. Contractors will be able to buy the materials for several sites in bulk and they will be delivered in one shipment, ultimately resulting in savings on the district’s bottom line,” said Blythe.
Although identical materials will be used at several of the schools, only CBCS will be getting a LEED certification, which will cost around $130,000. For that, the district will get a LEED consultant to be present throughout the project development to verify that the standard is being met.
“All of the schools have been designed from that list and that was our intention all along. The charrette was one way for our staff to see that what we have been doing falls under the LEED checklist,” said Nelson.
