LEED Canada-NC (NC stands for New Construction).
The proposed LVEC project mentions "LEED" in several places. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings. The city is placing quite a lot of emphasis on LEED. Specifically:
1) LEED is mentioned in the Executive Summary of the Mayor's Large Venue Entertainment Centre Task Force report:
The LVEC should contain 6,000 to 6,500 fixed seats with an additional 1,000 on-ice seats for concerts and live entertainment. It should have a single ice-pad of National Hockey League (NHL) size. It should have state of the art technology, and it should be an innovative "green" building for the purposes of evaluation by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. It should be architecturally exciting and reflect its superb waterfront location in a unique, historic downtown. Construction should commence as soon as possible. It should be operated by a professional management firm. It should be designed and developed in such a way that it becomes a catalyst for future economic development and a source of community pride.
2) LEED, and the possibility of LEED grants, was the first item mentioned by the somnolent LVEC Steering committee after releasing cost estimates. LEED preceded important items such as the cost of land, agreement with the Kingston Frontenacs Hockey Club, and the role of the Memorial Centre in project financing.
3) More recently, we see that LEED is a very important element in the evaluation criteria in the RFP for selecting the Design/Build team. The LEED weighting factor amounts to 5% (30/600) of all factors and, as such, is more prominent than things like "Urban Design" and "Accessibility" and "Project Schedule" and "QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) Program".
Elsewhere in many LVEC documents there are numerous references to the objective of a LEED "Silver" rating.
Clearly LEED is an important element of the project.
There are four LEED ratings available, namely, Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. In order for municipalities to get recognition, a "Supplement" to LEED Canada-NC must be created. Getting any recognition from LEED Canada-NC for an arena is essentially impossible without an incredible level of effort and a significant cash infusion.
To our knowledge, there is no arena in Canada with LEED certification. See from the link and extract hereunder why the new 7,000 seat Victoria arena, now called Save-on Food Memorial Centre, failed to get any LEED recognition.
Source: http://www.city.victoria.bc.ca/cityhall/currentprojects_multipurpose_news_vol22.shtml
Victoria Arena Update - Vol. 2 No. 2 - April 22, 2004
Arena Greening:
As reported earlier the City applied to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Green Municipal Enabling Fund (GMEF) for the development of a LEED(tm) Application Guide for Recreation Facilities. Though the application was supported by the Canada Green Building Council, and the GMEF felt the proposal had great merit, it determined that it did not fit the published mandatory criteria, and the application was turned down. The arena mechanical engineers, Keen Engineering Ltd. recently confirmed that the arena is unable to meet the standards of the Model Energy Code for Buildings (MNECB) without significant additional investment which would include unrealistic payback periods. Had the GMEF proposal been successful the criteria could have been revised to account for the particular user profile of this building type. As one of the LEED(tm) prerequisites requires exceeding the MNECB by 25%, it follows that LEED(tm) certification at any level is therefore not attainable.Undaunted however, the City has made another application to a federal infrastructure program seeking support for a number of energy related improvements, but the total would still fall short of the prerequisite requirements. In any event, the City and Developer will continue with the environmental initiatives currently underway, including soil erosion and site sedimentation controls. As eventual operator of the facility, and responsible for all operational costs, RG Properties has the incentive to reduce operating costs, making sustainability issues like energy and water use an important element of the arena design. As noted previously, obtaining a certain level of LEED(tm) certification is not the most important element of this process. What is important is that best efforts continue to be made to ensure sustainable solutions within the limitations of the project budget.
In summary, Mr. Gedge has not done his homework and the City of Kingston will not receive any grants for "greening" of the LVEC.
There is one arena in the United States that has LEED recognition, but take a look at what they had to do: Sustainability & Performance Add to Utah Olympic Oval Appeal.
It's not looking good for the prospects of LEED grants, and it's not looking good for achieving a LEED Silver rating given all the other considerations. We wonder why LEED is given so much more prominence and importance than fundamental things, like site selection, urban design, parking, accessibility, or any aspect of public consultation and dialog about the project.
We're guessing that LEED is a red-herring, designed to give the impression that the City knows what it's doing in the wider scheme of things. It shows that the project backers care passionately about something besides hastily stuffing the arena into the BIA's backyard with no real public input, no oversight, and no accountability.