First LEED-CI Platinum in the North Bay area of San Francisco: Comcast’s New Operations Center at Sonoma Mountain Village

Comcast’s new zero-carbon Operations Center at Sonoma Mountain Village, managed and built by the developer, Codding Enterprises, has received the first LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification – the top honor available from the U.S. Green Building Council – in the North Bay area of San Francisco.

The Operations Center is the first Platinum LEED certified facility for Comcast, and it is a natural fit for Sonoma Mountain Village where Codding plans to create a complete neighborhood with jobs and housing within an easy walk of daily basic needs, like groceries, daycare and restaurants.

“A significant factor in Comcast’s decision to move to Sonoma Mountain Village was Codding’s vision for the future community, as we are constantly looking for ways to improve the lives of our employees and customers,” said Paul Gibson, Area Vice President for Comcast. “The facility generates operational efficiencies, and gives Comcast’s technicians newer tools and resources to better serve customers in the same communities where our employees work and live.”

The plan for Sonoma Mountain Village is ambitious – 100 percent renewable power and ultra-efficient water use, for example – but it is already starting to pay off. Tenants receive green power for no extra cost and 41 companies have moved into the first phase.

“Rohnert Park is proud of Sonoma Mountain Village’s progress toward sustainability and applauds their LEED Platinum certification on the Comcast facility. Green jobs and green buildings go hand in hand, and we need more of both.” said Mayor Pam Stafford.

Comcast’s 35,000 square foot Sonoma County Operations Center is home to more than 150 employees, including maintenance technicians and field service representatives who install and repair Comcast’s advanced digital video, high-speed Internet and telephone communications services. The facility also includes warehouse space and houses technical support vehicles.

“The green building movement offers an unprecedented opportunity to respond to the most important challenges of our time, including global climate change, dependence on non-sustainable and expensive sources of energy and threats to human health,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President of the U.S. Green Building Council. “The work of innovative building projects such as Sonoma Mountain Village is a fundamental driving force in the green building movement.”

LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building 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, stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. The U.S. Green Building Council administers LEED and related green building training programs and events.

Comcast’s LEED Platinum facility generates no greenhouse gases at all from building energy and uses just 46% of the water for a typical new office building. Some of the sustainable design features of the property include:

• A record-setting 98% of all waste from construction was recycled
• Irrigation with reclaimed water
• Advanced lighting and controls using 35% less energy than a typical new California office
• 100% solar powered from an on-site 1 megawatt array
  

  The 1MW onsite solar PV array being installed

• Efficient heating and cooling with a central plant using special economizers
• Climate-friendly refrigerants in the cooling system
• Advanced testing and verification of lighting and HVAC systems
• Sustainably harvested woods for doors, lockers and finishes
• Natural linoleum flooring
• Low-emission paints, glues, carpets and furniture
• Recycled content carpet with end-of-life recycling guarantee
• Advanced air filtration with 30% more fresh air than typical
• Green janitorial chemicals and practices
• Bicycle storage, showers and changing rooms
• Salvaged materials such as fencing and bathroom partitions
• Local sourcing of materials

The project team, led by Codding and Codding Construction, includes Wix Architecture, 15000 mechanical engineering, JRA electrical engineering, KEMA commissioning services and Codding Maintenance.

Contact:    Geof Syphers, Chief Sustainability Officer, Codding Enterprises
geofs@codding.com

Sonoma Mountain Village – progress update

Increased renewable energy generation

In December 2009, a contract with Stellar Energy was signed to provide an additional 1,000 kilowatt solar photovoltaic array on the roof of one of the existing commercial buildings on-site. Work began on this project in late February and should be completed by the end of 2010.

Job creation

Job creation at Sonoma Mountain Village (SMV) has increased and there are now over 850 jobs onsite in commercial buildings and the successful green business incubator. In 2009 almost 100% of all new leasing activity in the municipality of Rohnert Park occurred at SMV, making it the city’s largest source of new jobs. In November 2009 DC Power Systems, one of the nation’s largest suppliers of solar components, announced its headquarters move to SMV. We have also found cases where conventional tenants at SMV have been influenced by the One Planet culture at their new workplace to establish new or improved sustainability goals for their on-site operations. By attracting jobs – particularly green jobs – to Rohnert Park, the SMV project is helping to compensate for the loss of 2,500 local high-tech manufacturing jobs when the original owners of the SMV site left the property.

Local business

A detailed development agreement between Sonoma Mountain Village and a coalition of local labour, housing and environmental groups called the Accountable Development Coalition on the use of union labour and living wages, construction of affordable housing and environmental requirements has been completed, receiving praise in the media for its “far reaching” impact on local business practice.

Environmental Impact Review

SMV’s public Environmental Impact Review (EIR), an in-depth process mandated by the State, has also been completed. SMV has set important precedents in California for using a per capita approach to carbon footprint in their EIR, and for earning a “less than significant” GHG impact finding (representing the lowest carbon impact finding in California to date at the neighbourhood scale).