One of the main goals when the Gateway Center was constructed on the SUNY-ESF campus was to achieve the highest standards of environmental friendliness.

That goal was accomplished when the Gateway Center recently received LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of certification and the end-goal during the construction of the Gateway Center. State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry received a plaque last week to commemorate the achievement, which is displayed prominently in the building.

The building serves many purposes; it houses the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the SUNY-ESF outreach staff, event space, the bookstore and a café. To Quentin Wheeler, president of SUNY-ESF, the Gateway Center serves as a gathering space for the campus community.

“ESF strives to practices what is teaches, including sustainability and environmental stewardship,” Wheeler said in an email.

The environmentally friendly design is a teaching tool for ESF students who are studying sustainability and sustainable energy management and additionally showcases the sustainable technologies that are incorporated, Wheeler said.

The creation of the Gateway Center required “seemingly endless planning,” Wheeler said. Architerra, a Boston-based firm, designed a building that best suited the campus needs and was able to fit the long, narrow site that the campus grounds had to offer. The design from the firm included a combined heat and power system, which provides the campus with 60 percent of its heating needs and 20 percent of its electrical power.

The green roof serves as a research and demonstration project and houses “native plant species from eastern Lake Ontario dunes and alvar pavement barrens at the northeastern end of Lake Ontario.”

The design of the building reduces energy costs and dependence on non-renewable energy on the whole, which has been a focus of building design on the campus for the last few years. Wheeler said energy and environmental design has increased dramatically as SUNY-ESF has made it a point to add green roofs, solar arrays, permeable pavement, rain gardens and no-mow zones to the campus and increase the number of vehicles that are powered with clean energy.

All future buildings on campus will be planned with a similar environmentally friendly design in mind, Wheeler said. Additionally, the building also contains display space for specimens from the Roosevelt Wild Life Station and will eventually house museum and work space for the collection, he said.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a program created by the U.S. Green Building Council that acts as a third-party verification service to set the standard for green building. The buildings are evaluated by a rating system that lists the conditions green buildings must meet and the points associated with each level of the scale.

Wheeler said some of the features that helped the Gateway Center achieve LEED Platinum certification were site selection, development density and community connectivity, innovation in design and regional property credits that include storm water design and heat island effect.

Wheeler said SUNY-ESF is proud to have accomplished what they set out to do with the construction of the Gateway Center and are pleased to have a high-tech building for students to use to learn about sustainability. Furthermore, he said he is proud of the central message the creation of the Gateway Center sends.

“It is possible to construct a building that is designed to generate more energy than it consumes,” Wheeler said. “This type of construction is not limited to college campuses. It can be done anywhere.”

Published on March 22, 2015 at 8:05 pm

Contact Anjali: acalwis@syr.edu