Wayne State Building Gets Nod From Green Building Council

DETROIT (WWJ) - The U.S. Green Building Council is recognizing a Wayne State Building as LEED-certified.

LEED is an energy sustainability building rating administered by the non-profit.

Jim Sears, Vice President of facilities for WSU, says the Marvin I. Danto Engineering Development Center has received a silver-level certification.

"For us, given it's our first, we are quite pleased and proud of that. We are now designing a new Bio-Medical research building that we hope to ultimately receive a gold level of recognition but it will probably be some time in 2015/16," said Sears.

That building needs about 30 million dollars from the state in order to  be built. The school has submitted a proposal to the governor's office and is waiting for approval.

"We took advantage of technologies that allow us to do energy recovery through the exhaust air stream, " said Sears. "So that we are not consuming as much natural gas or electricity for heating and cooling purposes. The building has a white roof instead of a black coal-tar roof - and there are efficiencies in the plumbing system."

The Engineering Development Center was completed in 2009 and cost $27 million dollars.