Palmetto Bay's Municipal Center Takes The LEED

Palmetto Bay celebrated in February 2011 when it opened its ultra-green Village Hall. On October 23^rd, it was able to celebrate again when it was officially awarded LEED Platinum certification.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and Platinum means that the facility not only is ultra-efficient in its use of resources, but also that the building process and procedures were achieved at the highest standards.

Communications Manager Bill Kress appropriately said, “We do things big in this little Village and we are now on the world stage as a ‘green’ leader.”

Mayor Shelley Stanczyk gave the impressive details, “We are the first and only LEED Platinum government office building in all of Florida and only one of three Platinum City Halls in the entire nation.”

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen proudly recognized Palmetto Bay “for its commitment to build a better future and to serve as a model for our nation by merging development and environmentally sound building strategies.”

County Commission Lynda Bell said, “this is a great day for the residents and officials of Palmetto Bay who have set an example for other American leaders to achieve.”

Although not part of the current Council, Flinn was given an opportunity to speak. He made sure to thank and congratulate people who were there ten years ago at inception. He reminded us that former Councilman Paul Neidhart picked the location to allow for economic redevelopment and smart building saying,“Green is not a lofty goal, it's really about quality construction.” He also singled out Director of Building Ed Silva who got the money in Tallahassee from the Department of Energy.

The municipal center features one of the largest solar arrays in South Florida providing about 80% of the needed power for the facility, LED lighting for 95% of all lighting needs, a 60-thousand gallon cistern system that supplies all water for restroom facilities and landscape irrigation, 36-unit air conditioning for on-demand cooling, occupancy sensors that automatically turn resources on and off to save electricity, and free electric car charging stations to name a few.

After the press conference, former Mayor Eugene Flinn, who was instrumental in the efforts to bring the building into existence, walked proudly around the various demonstrations of the building features, cracking crafty puns like ‘It’s electrifying to be up here’ (when looking at the roof solar panels) and ‘Many communities will be “Green” with envy’ (when seeing the porous paver demonstration).

There are only 900 LEED Platinum buildings in world, The Village Municipal Center ranks 111^th among them. Of all the buildings that apply to become LEED Platinum, only 3% achieve that status.