Michaels’ La Crosse Office earns LEED® Gold
La Crosse, WI – June 7, 2010 – Michaels Engineering’s La Crosse office in the historic Doerflinger Building has achieved Gold certification under the USGBC’s LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI) rating system.
Michaels’ office is the first project in the Coulee Region awarded LEED Gold certification, as well as the first project in western Wisconsin certified under the LEED CI rating system.
“We did not set out to achieve a specific level of LEED certification,” said Dave Waffenschmidt, president of Michaels Engineering. “Using the LEED checklist as a guide, we simply pursued those green features that made economic sense, increased the quality of the office environment for our employees, or helped fulfill our corporate commitment to environmental responsibility.”
Sustainable features include:
- Downtown location with access to public transportation
- Bicycle storage and a shower/changing room
- Views to the outdoors for more than 95% of the occupants
- Nearly a 50% reduction in potable water use
- Optimized HVAC and lighting systems, including daylighting
- Reuse of office furniture
- Green cleaning policy
Michaels has provided the engineering design for a total of five LEED projects, all certified Gold. They have also provided energy consulting or LEED facilitation services for another 10 projects at various stages of the design or certification process.
About LEED
LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.
Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.
