From the Editor
When Providence (Ore.) Health & Services broke ground on the Providence Newberg Medical Center in 2004, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system from the U.S. Green Building Council was about four years old.

At that time, project teams focused primarily on sustainability during the design and construction of LEED-certified buildings. Ongoing performance was not top of mind for project teams — unless those teams included directors of maintenance, engineering, and operations.

But the performance of LEED buildings has become more of a hot-button issue over the last couple years, with building owners and managers realizing that hanging a LEED plaque does not signal the end of an organization’s commitment to environmental responsibility.

In that regard, Providence Newberg Medical Center was ahead of its time. In 2006, the 183,000-square-foot medical center became the first hospital to earn LEED Gold certification. Despite the accolades the facility was sure to generate, the medical center’s facilities manager, Jeff Schorzman, was concerned the building would not perform as designers intended.

"One of the concerns I had was, would the building perform and function as it was designed," Schorzman says. "The LEED stuff was relatively new. We started construction in 2004, and, at the time, LEED was only about (four) years old. So there wasn't a whole lot of data and information available to see what's good and what's not good to help guide some of our decisions. We didn't have a good grasp on what to expect from it."

Schorzman’s concerns unfortunately came to fruition, as oversized equipment performed inefficiently, and the facilities team realized they did not vet the building systems as much as they would have liked, due in large part to having to meet tight deadlines. After enduring a tough first year of operations, Schorzman and his team made the necessary changes that led to reduced gas and power use and more efficient operations overall.

At a time when long-term performance was not a top priority for facilities pursuing LEED certification, Schorzman and his team should be commended for extending their green commitment beyond the design and construction phases of the project. As we have learned over the last couple years, a LEED plaque is not necessarily a sign of an energy-efficient building. That is a lesson Schorzman learned early on, and he took the necessary steps to follow through on his organization’s commitment to sustainability.

Read more about the Providence Newberg Medical Center project below.

— Chris Matt, Editor

Green Strategies
Revisiting the Performance of First LEED Gold Hospital
The performance of LEED-certified buildings has attracted a great deal of attention in the last couple years. Instances of facilities that earned certification but failed to track their ongoing performance have led to increased scrutiny of the certification process. The situation begs the question: Five years after becoming the first LEED Gold hospital, is Providence Newberg Medical Center fulfilling its green goals?

In the News
Proposed ASHRAE Guideline Focuses on Operations, Maintenance
A proposed guideline from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), currently open for public comment, is designed to help improve the performance of all buildings by providing guidance on optimizing operations and maintenance to achieve the lowest economic and environmental life-cycle costs, without sacrificing safety or functionality.

Green Multimedia
Podcast: The Manager’s Role in LEED Certification
Curt Stainbrook, mechanical systems manager with Macalester College facilities services in St. Paul, Minn., discusses the HVAC and building-automation system technologies in one LEED-certified facility.