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The Armour Group recognized at The 10th Annual Environmental Excellence awards, Dalhousie Eco Efficiency Centre, June 3rd, 2009

The 10th Annual Environmental Excellence in Business,
Dalhousie Eco-Efficiency Centre, June 3rd,2009

Armour Group's Park Place V, Dartmouth - LEEDing the way in green workplaces

With more than 30 years experience in real estate development, Armour Group has continuously improved the standard for commercial, residential, and hospitality property management. Following an integrated approach, properties are designed, constructed, and managed in a way that incorporates a number of environmental and resource efficiency design features.

The company is a pioneer in green building, having installed the first sea water heating and cooling system in North America in 1972, while ensuring that upgrades to existing buildings incorporate green technologies and reuse building materials where possible.

Park Place V, Armour Group’s most recent development has been designed to achieve the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, a points-based certification system administered by the Canada Green Building Council. Park Place V is among the first LEED-designed buildings built by a private developer in the region, and is the largest LEED-constructed multi-tenant development in Atlantic Canada. It will be the newest building in the Park Place Corporate Campus, where buildings were designed to meet rigorous environmental requirements and energy and water efficiency targets.

With a mind toward being one of the greenest workplaces in Nova Scotia, a number of environmental and efficiency technologies were incorporated into Park Place V’s design from the outset. For example, throughout the construction period, an onsite portable crusher reduced transportation emissions for disposal and the need for new construction materials through recycling and reuse, a practice that contributed to saving over 19,000 kilometres in unnecessary truck transport. In addition, the HVAC system will operate without hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs), a potent greenhouse gas.

With respect to resource efficiency, Armour Group chose natural gas boilers and energy efficient lighting and waterless urinals and ultra low flow dual flush low-flow, dual-toilets to reduce energy and water needs, respectively. Going beyond the physical structure, Park Place V is intended to provide space for organizations committed to leading social and environmental practices, and the benefits of green building will be incorporated into the Armour Group’s communications with its tenants.

Overall, the benefits of building Park Place V with sustainability in mind speak for themselves: the building itself is 40 percent more energy efficient than required by Canada’s national building code. Furthermore, the water efficiency of the building is 43 percent greater than the LEED framework requires, a feature that earned the building additional credit for exemplary performance. In total,
the environmental initiatives undertaken throughout the design and construction of the building will save more than 11,000 litres of diesel fuel and nearly 30,000 kilograms of greenhouse gases, and prevent 7,000 tonnes of waste rock from being shipped to landfills.

Armour Group believes that the environmental design elements of Park Place V will be the expectation of building design in the future. The company aims to build future development with the LEED standard in mind, an objective that will provide Nova Scotia’s employers with workspaces that are eco-friendly, health conscious, and imbedded with a true “sense of place”.

http://eco-efficiency.management.dal.ca/index.php