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Homeless shelter takes LEED in energy efficiency
The new Emergency Homeless Shelter and remodeled Transitional Housing Project, which will hold an open house Sept. 10, is a lot more than just another completed project to Bill Clark at the Department of Construction and Solid Waste Management.
The combined homeless shelter and transitional housing center in Leesburg is the county‘s first LEED-certified – for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – building, Clark said, and it won’t be the last. In addition, Clark said, it’s a project he feels good about, one that “everyone should be proud of, a really good use of tax dollars.”
This is something very important to the community, Clark said, “a good thing for us to do, to build this sort of structure and not ignore these people and not judge them but to help them. It defines us as a community.”
To Helen Richardson, director of the homeless and transitional services for Volunteers of America, which operates the shelter, it means gathering services for the county’s homeless in one central Leesburg location that has public transportation at the stop sign out front of 19520 Meadowview Court, across from Leesburg Executive Airport.
The old 8,800-square-foot transitional housing facility on the site, which provides a home for families and single women for up to two years, has been remodeled and expanded to nearly 18,000 square feet, and now will include emergency shelter space. Once it opens its doors to new residents later this month, the old homeless shelters – three houses on The Woods Road – will be razed to make way for a landfill expansion.
To architect Sandy Hunter and mechanical engineer John Campbell, the project was a chance to put their LEED training to work. Both are LEED-accredited professionals. She designed, and he built in, the elements that make the building energy efficient, healthy and kind to both its environment and its residents.
The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council has been certifying buildings to its standards since 2000. The Loudoun project has accumulated enough points for everything from construction waste disposal to low-flow shower heads to achieve the gold certification, just one tick under the top level, platinum.
The design and construction team exceeded most of its own goals: 97 percent of the construction waste was recycled rather than going to a landfill. The building will use 32 percent less energy than a standard building. Solar panels use up most of the usable roof space. The construction and outfitting of the building used 45 percent, by cost, materials that contain recycled content (LEED requires 10 percent). Building materials were 52 percent local or regional (LEED requires 20 percent).
They earned points in some trickier ways – bikes racks to encourage non-fossil fuel transportation, preferred parking for low emission/fuel efficient vehicles, no increase in overall parking capacity.
Inside, paints and carpets were chosen that don’t emit volatile organic compounds, and all the circulating air passes through UV filters that kill 99.5 percent of airborne bacteria. Dual-flush toilets save water when only fluids are going down. Occupancy sensors turn out the lights in empty rooms.
Campbell was the county’s first LEED-certified planner four years ago – the number has since grown to 23, including Hunter. The energy-stingy and environmentally friendly goal will be the county’s norm from now on, and all new projects are being planned with geothermal heating systems, Campbell said.
Clark also worked hard, he said, to make the shelter look and feel less institutional and more homelike. Some of that was done at low cost – choosing wallpapers and using two-tone paint schemes. The natural light that floods 90 percent of the interior spaces keeps the electricity costs down. It also makes it a nicer place for families down on their luck to live.
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