Larry Larese, executive director, Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corporation; Kathleen McGinty, secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; Tom Balya, chairman, Westmoreland County Commissioners; Gregory Phillips, district manager/CEO, Westmoreland Conservation District

This week state and local dignitaries; conservation, agriculture, and rural development agency representatives; members of the philanthropic community; and interested members of the public gathered to cut the ribbon on the “GreenForge” building.

They’re called the event a “Green Breaking.”

“Because this project is a rehab and not new construction, we can’t technically call this a ‘ground-breaking,’” explained Greg Phillips, district manager/CEO of the Westmoreland Conservation District, one of the project’s main partners. “But it serves much the same purpose: to publicly announce the project…recognize the people who are helping to make it happen -- its board, partners, and funders…and give everyone a look inside -- at the space available and some of the innovative approaches we plan to incorporate, including the county’s first-ever green roof.”

In addition to Phillips, speakers included Kathleen McGinty, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection; Tom Balya, chairman of the Westmoreland County Commissioners; and Larry Larese, executive director of the Westmoreland County Industrial Development corporation.

The Westmoreland Conservation District and its lead partners in the project, the Westmoreland Industrial Development Corporation Inc. and the Katherine Mabis McKenna Foundation, have named the 23,000-square-foot commercial building “GreenForge.” And they set a goal of to rehabing the 1980s-era structure in such a way that is both efficient and sustainable.

They plan to raise the conservation-quality of the building materials, operating systems, and design to a standard high enough to attain Silver-level certification from The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. Members of the U.S. Green Building Council, representing all segments of the building industry, developed this rating system.

Among the many conservation features they plan to install in GreenForge are:

· the first green roof in Westmoreland County (this roof actually will be covered with growing, green plants);

· a geothermal system for heat and cooling; and

· a photovoltaic array to supply some of the building’s electrical needs.

GreenForge also most likely have the distinction of being the first building project in the county to increase the number of parking spaces associated with it, while decreasing the amount of impervious (paved) surfaces. GreenForge will achieve this by retrofitting the current asphalt parking lots with bioretention cells (landscaped islands that work as a catch basin to capture and slowly release rain and melting snow into the ground).

Not only will the conservation measures incorporated into GreenForge reduce the impact of the building’s operation on the air, water, and man-made environment (e.g., less water added to the municipal storm sewer system), they also will serve as teaching tools to help raise awareness of these practices and encourage their wider adoption.

“All of the conservation materials and technologies incorporated in the building and its grounds will be used in our outreach efforts,” Phillips explained. “We will invite area engineers, developers, earthmovers, architects, and others involved in the building trade, as well as local homeowners, to come to GreenForge to see these things in action and to get information about how well they work.”

Even while the rehabilitation work at GreenForge is going on, tenants already are signing up to move into the new space. Westmoreland PA Cleanways, a grassroots organization that fights litter and illegal dumping and promotes recycling; the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, a group of that works to clean up land and water damaged by past coal-mining practices in 24 counties in western Pennsylvania; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development agency, will be the first to move in.

“We see GreenForge as a logical extension of what already has become a “conservation campus” along Donohoe Road,” Phillips said. Donohoe Center,

the conservation District’s barn headquarters, the Ann Rudd Saxman Nature Park, and the County Public Works building all have related missions and all are physically located side-by-side along that roadway.

“We would like to use GreenForge to draw even more like-minded agencies to this campus, so that we could have the benefit of regular – maybe even daily – collaboration on our efforts to restore and conserve the region’s natural resources, and to support the county’s number one industry, agriculture,” Phillips added.

Total costs to purchase and rehab the GreenForge building are projected to be just over $2 million.

A capital fundraising campaign launched late last year has raised some $960,000 in support for the project to-date from a variety of sources, including the Katherine Mabis McKenna Foundation; the Richard King Mellon Foundation; the Energy Harvest grant program of the Department of Environmental Protection; the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund; the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corporation; Kim Edward Miller, president of Wolf Lake Incorporated; and Richard Glance, architect.

The Westmoreland County Commissioners also have included GreenForge on the county Growing Greener Initiative project list.

Link: Westmoreland Conservation Campus Expanding to Include “GreenForge”

4/21/2006