Going Green: Two Missoula Banks to be LEED-Certified

By Kyle Lehman, 2-16-08

	Caption: Where First Interstate Bank used to be in downtown Missoula, and where the new LEED-certified bank will be built. Photo by Emily Haas.

There's a gaping hole in the ground on the corner of Higgins Avenue and Front Street in downtown Missoula, where a new LEED-certified First Interstate Bank will replace the one just torn down. And across town on Russell Street, construction has started on a LEED-certified Missoula Federal Credit Union building that’s putting to practice some of the "greenest" technologies in the building industry.

Nationwide, "green" building is the fastest growing sector in an otherwise floundering industry, and its reach is particularly strong in the West where a number of emerging green architecture and engineering firms are putting their stamps on the West's fast-growing cities, including Missoula.

The industry's measure for greenness is the U.S. Green Building Council's rating system called LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Montana has four LEED-certified buildings and twenty-six registered projects.

Sue Larew, vice president of First Interstate Bank, hopes her company's new bank will set the standard for commercial green building in Missoula. It's reusing the demolished structure, and the new bank will use low-flow fixtures, irrigate with rainwater and tap into groundwater to make the building's cooling system more efficient -- all of which, over time, will save a lot of money.

	A sketch of the First Interstate Bank to be built on the corner of Higgins and Front Streets in downtown Missoula. Courtesy of CTA.

"It's good for the environment and the community," Larew says, and "it's just good business."

Anya Fiechtl of the architecture firm CTA, which is designing the bank, says that 97 percent of the material from the old building is being recycled, a statistic she says illustrates the building team's commitment to LEED protocol. "It's not about saying your green, its about actually building green," she says.

CTA's Kent Bray says the LEED process has played a big role in making green building more accessible to architects and builders, and mainstream in the industry. "I graduated in the '70’s, and there was a lot of interest in these things, but it was much harder to accomplish," he says.

The Missoula Federal Credit Union, designed by MMW Architects, hopes to achieve the highest possible LEED certification level: platinum. The only other such building in Montana is the Northern Plains Resource Council building in Billings.

The credit union's new home will use concrete made entirely from fly ash (coal soot from the inside walls of power plant chimneys) and recycled glass and may have a commercial grey water recycling system, like a mini waste-water treatment plant. Grey water systems collect a building’s used water (except that from toilets and kitchen sinks), filters it and makes it available for use elsewhere.

	A sketch of the Missoula Federal Credit Union to be built on Russell Street. Courtesy of MMW.

John Wells of MMW said the LEED building standards come from years of accumulated knowledge and form a practical and flexible benchmark for what "green" means. Still, the LEED system has drawbacks. He says some practices that could add to a project's overall LEED score are actually less environmentally friendly than other options. For example, wood recommended by the USGBC and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, is probably less "green" than local wood.

"A big point of sustainability is doing things locally," Wells says. "It doesn’t make sense to truck in FSC wood when you can get a similar product here."

Wells works with a local forester named Mark Vandermeer, who overseas the production of "Good Wood." This wood is harvested from area forests using stewardship practices that protect biodiversity and promote forest restoration after the trees have been harvested.

If the green building movement grows as projected, and government regulatory agencies continue to adopt elements of the certification process into their requirements, Wells sees a future where LEED buildings are the norm rather than the exception.

The bar will continue to be raised, he says, and the end result will be "healthier, better-quality buildings." [End of article]