The Federal Aviation Administration’s Seattle, WA Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility was awarded a LEED Gold certification. The 52,100 square foot building is the largest building to date that the FAA has built to LEED standards.
Key features that make this a LEED-Gold building are the use of green materials, stormwater management, energy efficiency, natural landscaping, and use of a chemical-free treatment system for the cooling tower. More than 90 percent of the total building materials have a minimum weighted average of 20 percent postconsumer recycled content or 40 percent post-industrial recycled content. And, more than 90 percent of construction debris was recycled!
Implementation of the facility’s stormwater management plan resulted in a treatment system designed to remove 80 percent of the average annual post development total suspended solids and 40 percent of the average annual post development total phosphorus. FAA also created a 6.8 acre protected zone of land to minimize environmental impacts on an adjacent wetland.
The building is designed to take advantage of daylighting. The use of natural lighting is maximized through the use of light shelves on the outer side of windows, skylights, light tubes, and automatic dimming controls on office lights. The result is a 14 percent reduction in annual energy costs. In addition, individual heat and air conditioning floor vents in each office assist building occupants to control the climate of their offices.
Seattle TRACON’s use of natural landscape vegetation and water efficient interior fixtures resulted in a combined annual reduction of 246,000 gallons of water, 30 percent over baseline calculations.
The cooling tower water treatment system is chemical free, avoiding the use of chemicals to treat the water and the generation of more than 525 pounds of chlorine gas that otherwise would be released to the environment each year.
For additional information, contact Patrick Walsh, 425-227-1340, patrick.walsh@faa.gov.
