The other night at Shea’s Green Business Chat (which I highly recommend), I mentioned the headquarters of Alberici Construction as a green building here in St. Louis (and, yes, it’s LEED certified) — I know blogged about this at some point, but damned if I can find it. Today, the South City Journal had news of yet another LEED-certified construction company headquarters in town: the Tarlton Corporation headquarters:
People work at their desks in a large, open area lit by sunlight from huge windows on the north side of the Tarlton Corporation headquarters.
Through these windows, forklifts can be seen moving scrap around a nearby junkyard — indicating that this environmentally-friendly building sits in the heart of an industrial area.
The site of the Tarlton building at 5500 West Park Ave. in the Cheltenham neighborhood was a brownfield, but the company’s environmental remediation of the site helped to gain it certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Tarlton, a general contracting and construction management firm, received the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver Certification from the council earlier this year for its nearly two-year-old structure.
The contracting firm won certification for remediation of brownfield space, construction using waste management techniques, use of recycled and non-polluting materials, energy efficiency and providing a healthy work environment for employees.
While the building itself has many cool features, I was especially happy to read about the motivation behind the company’s green headquarters:
Elsperman said Tarlton had been doing projects for clients that wanted LEED certification, so the company pursued the certification for itself.
“We felt if we were already doing it on other projects, we should do it on our own project,” he said. “We can certainly demonstrate that we understand the process, but it does take a commitment on the part of the owner to go through the certification.”
That’s exciting: Tarlton sees enough demand for green building to justify the expense of shooting for LEED status in their own headquarters. While St. Louis isn’t always on the cutting edge, it’s great to see that both businesses and residents understand the value of green buildings.
Categories: greenbuilding, construction, LEED, stlouis