Want to feel like a child again? The United States Green Building Council, or USGBC, Oklahoma chapter is giving an exclusive tour of Oklahoma City’s new LEED Silver-certified Fire Station 6 in Bricktown from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 24. The station replaces the old one at NE Eighth Street and Lincoln Boulevard. This is a great opportunity to find out what it takes to build a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified building in Oklahoma and to learn about the benefits of building green.
Fire Station 6 is at 21 N. Lincoln Blvd. It opened in September 2011 and is the first city-owned building to receive the certification. LEED is an internationally recognized mark of excellence in green building. It provides building owners with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measureable solutions for sustainable building design, construction, operations and maintenance.
The green building certification system provides third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving environmental performance. It looks at and measures all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, reduction of CO2 emissions, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their effects.
Mayor Mick Cornett has stated that he wants Oklahoma City to be a leader in high-quality, energy-efficient construction and the new fire station is environmentally friendly while providing everything the firefighters need to do their job. Saving taxpayer money on a fire station’s lifetime energy demand is good leadership. Thank you, mayor.
The station has received credits for energy-saving features such as salvaged brick pavers in the foyer, a hydronic heating system in the rig room, a roof that reflects heat rather than absorbs it and energy and water efficiencies that are expected to save the city $30,000 over the coming years.
Building construction utilized recycled and locally produced materials to reduce the environmental footprint. The new LEED Silver-certified facility primarily serves downtown, Bricktown, the Capitol Complex, Deep Deuce, the Medical Business District and the Oklahoma River.
The land the station is built on required brownfield remediation, in this case oil-field cleanup. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board, or OERB, provided the resources and knowledge to help earn certification credits. This was the 10,000th site cleaned up by the OERB. Thank you, OCC and OERB!
The $2.9 million station was built with funds provided by the 2000 general obligation bond issue and capital use project taxes.
City leaders deserve praise for their foresight in electing to construct a LEED-certified building and so do the LEED team members, Locke Wright Pruitt and Brown Architects, Alvine Engineering, and Miller-Tippens Construction Co.
Formed in April 2008, the Oklahoma chapter of the USGBC has members from all across Oklahoma. There are now nearly 600 LEED-accredited professionals and LEED Green Associates in the state.
Becoming part of the Oklahoma Chapter membership is a valuable way to keep in touch with the Oklahoma green building and sustainability scene.
Immediately after the tour, the USGBC Oklahoma chapter will meet just down the street at Tapwerks for an informal social hour and they want you to join them. To find out more about this forward-moving group, visit www.usgbc-oklahoma.org.
Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.