ASU's Cronkite School Achieves LEED Silver Certification
The new downtown Phoenix, AZ, building that houses the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU) has achieved LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
The Cronkite building was constructed with numerous sustainable features, including an east-west orientation for solar control, exterior overhangs and sunscreens for shading windows, energy-saving materials to help optimize building-energy performance, low or no-water landscaping, low-flow plumbing fixtures, building materials that meet LEED low-emitting product requirements and occupancy sensors for lighting control.
In addition, more than 10 percent of the total building material content was manufactured using recycled materials, said Howard Shugar, vice president and senior project manager for HDR, the architectural firm for the building. Shugar noted that the USGBC awarded the project 37 points out of 37 submitted for sustainable features, such as being served by 12 bus lines within a quarter-mile of the site, diverting 79.8 percent of construction waste (nearly two tons) generated on-site from a landfill, and development and implementation of a green housekeeping program.
ASU President Michael Crow, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan officially received the LEED plaque for the Cronkite building on November 13th, 2009. The ceremony was part of the festivities surrounding the USGBC’s annual Greenbuild conference, which was held in Phoenix during the same week and included a tour of the journalism school.
The Cronkite building, which also houses KAET/Eight, is part of the massive redevelopment underway in the heart of downtown Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city. In 2003, Arizona voters approved a $223 million bond to revitalize the downtown area by creating a downtown ASU campus. Through a public-public partnership between Arizona State University and the City of Phoenix, a nine block downtown campus took form. The $71 million Cronkite building, located at the corner of Central Avenue and Taylor Mall, was the single largest portion of that investment and the first ground-up building for the new campus. As such, it bore the added responsibility of establishing a benchmark for sustainable design.
The building is a six-story structure of glass, steel and concrete built by Sundt Construction Inc. and designed by HDR Architecture, Inc. in partnership with Ehrlich Associates.
