D.C. OPM brings forth green building guidebook

It has come to the knowledge that the D.C. Office of Property Management has come out with a new green building guide in order to help its agencies by means of the higher levels of green building design. It should also be stated that basic objective of the guidebook is to walk its agency project managers through the design and construction process so as to bring home the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. What is more, city managers have to abide by the D.C. Green Building Act, which commenced requiring last year that considerable publicly funded building projects accomplish LEED’s silver status or above.

What is the basic aim of Office of Property Management (OPM)? It should be learnt in order gauge the aptness of this guidebook. Well, the mission of OPM is to support the District Government and residents through strategic real estate management, construction and facilities management.

Nevertheless, a section of city leaders said they have already set their sights higher with this reference guide. “The LEED Guide is already making a difference in the District,” said Robin-Eve Jasper, director of OPM. “Thanks in part to the LEED Guide, OPM expects to have more LEED Gold projects like the Consolidated Forensic Laboratory in Southwest and the Department of Employment Services headquarters in Northeast.”

It must be stated that the guidebook was composed seeing that project managers were undergoing the design and LEED application process for the $218 million, 350,000-square-foot Consolidated Forensic Lab. In addition, the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Architects helped author the guidebook.

It is true despite the fact that, partly as a result, the current guidebook consists of the steps to obtain the existent version of LEED certification, with a possibility of becoming actual making it outdated when LEED 2009, the next version, is set to kick in later this summer.