Study Of Green Building Reveals LEED Cost Impacts

Washington DC – The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the majority of the federal government’s design and construction projects, has released a study estimating the costs of developing green federal facilities using the U.S.Green Building Council’s LEED rating system, Version 2.1.The study was prepared by Steven Winter Associates, Inc., with cost estimating support provided by Skanska USA Building, Inc.

The report provides a detailed and structured review of both the hard and soft costs of achieving LEED Certified, Silver, and Gold ratings for two common GSA building types. The two buildings compared in the study-a new mid-rise federal courthouse and a mid-rise federal office building modernization-reflect a significant portion of GSA’s planned projects over the next five to ten years.

An analysis, including DOE.2 energy modeling, was performed to identify green building measures above and beyond those included in GSA’s standards that would likely be implemented to meet the specific LEED ratings. From these measures, the design and construction costs were estimated for each prerequisite and credit, with variations defined for both the courthouse and office building models.

The entire study can be downloaded at no cost from http://www.wbdg.org/newsevents/news_040105.php