NEW US Coast Guard Headquarters - Plans To Consolidate Service Under A Grassy Roof

When the Department of Homeland Security announced the idea of a new consolidated Coast Guard headquarters it seemed fitting, considering the Coast Guard’s involvement developing and enforcing environmental laws, that the plans would take advantage of sustainable building design practices and technologies.

“The new Coast Guard headquarters building will adhere to stringent sustainable construction and design standards,” said Capt. George Stephanos, GCHQ project manager. “This project demonstrates a strong commitment from GSA, DHS and the Coast Guard to our responsibility to be good environmental stewards.”

The new Coast Guard headquarters will include a green roof among other sustainable design best practices.

Until recently, all new federal buildings were required to meet a ‘Silver’ certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design criteria, GSA recently set a goal to exceed this requirement with aLEED Gold certification. While the new Coast Guard headquarters was contracted during the ‘Silver’ phase, GSA, DHS and Coast Guard are working to achieve ‘Gold’ certification for the project.

LEED certification is an internationally recognized green building certification system acknowledging that the campus was designed and is being built using strategies aimed at improving performance in energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

The Coast Guard is scheduled to move onto the new headquarters in 2013 and the consolidation of CG units at this location, the historic St. Elizabeths hospital site, will create a green “campus” for service members to enjoy.

This Post was originally written for Coast Guard Compass by Christopher Lagan.