The Plaza at PPL Center this week won two awards recognizing its “green” construction features – the LEED “gold” rating and a Special Recognition Award from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council has awarded the building a "gold" rating. The Plaza is the first privately owned building in Pennsylvania to achieve this status, and only the eighth privately owned building in the nation to win.

Among the environmental features of the building are:

-- Extensive use of natural daylight that reduces the dependency on electric lighting and provides a direct window view for more than 90 percent of the office space.

-- Two plant-filled winter gardens that provide a buffer from direct southern exposure and improve indoor air quality.

-- A very efficient heating, ventilating and air conditioning system that uses more than 30 percent less energy than conventional building standards. It includes an ice storage system that makes ice at night when electricity demand is low and uses the ice to help save cooling energy during peak daytime periods.

-- Bicycle storage, showers and locker rooms for employees who bike to work.

-- An advanced lighting control system that dims the lights when there is natural daylight available and turns off lights in unoccupied areas.

-- A vegetative roof to reduce runoff, reduce energy consumption and extend the life of the roof.

-- Water-conserving devices that save at least 500,000 gallons of water per year.

-- A large street plaza to increase open space for downtown.

-- Recycled materials used in construction, and recycling of construction debris.

-- The urban site used existing infrastructure and allows access to public transportation.

-- Electricity provided from renewable sources.

-- Storm water runoff control features.

-- Fresh air ventilation, an air filtration system and careful selection of building materials to provide high indoor air quality.

Liberty Property Trust is the developer and owner of the building, and PPL leases six of its eight floors. The Plaza, completed in spring 2003, houses PPL's unregulated subsidiaries including PPL Generation, PPL EnergyPlus and PPL Global.

LEED is a voluntary green building rating system that defines, measures and certifies buildings that are environmentally responsible, economically efficient and healthy places to live and work. The LEED certification process includes a thorough review of the building's design features, construction plans and records.

The second Special Recognition Award was given to Liberty Property Trust for its leadership in commercial real estate construction, represented most recently by the Plaza at PPL Center project. The company also has a second planned green project that will get underway in Philadelphia this summer—the Pennsylvania Plaza, a 60 story green office building.

The Plaza at PPL Center received two other awards recently for its environmental features. It was named one of the 10 best examples of architectural and green design solutions that integrate architecture, technology and natural systems by the American Institute of Architects, and it won first prize in the large building workplace category of the Northeast Green Building Awards sponsored by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Renewable Energy Trust and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.

For more on the Plaza, visit: http://www.pplweb.com/community/pplplaza.htm .

For more information on green buildings visit: Well Built, Green Built

http://www.greenworks.tv/green_building/index.htm

6/1/2004