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Morristown Celebrates Earth Day by Honoring First Green Globes-Rated Building in New Jersey

April 23, 2008  |  from greenbuildingsNYC

On Tuesday, the Green Building Initiative honored Earth Day by awarding its first Green Globes rating to a project in the Garden State. The Point at Morristown is a six-story, 24,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail tower developed by Needle Point Homes, a Central New Jersey-based builder of custom home projects. According to Steve Needle, the firm chose Green Globes “because of its ability to assist us in meeting our goals to reduce our impact on the environment and the surrounding community, while being user-friendly and affordable.”

Green features at The Point include dual-flush toilets, sensor-operated faucets, low-E, double-paned windows, recycled carpeting, a recycling center, fluorescent lighting, and rooftop photovoltaics. Green Globes differs from LEED in a number of ways, one of which is the third-party, on-site inspection process performed by a GBI-authorized building science expert to confirm the rating obtained by the project team. The Point earned the same rating (which was unspecified in yesterday’s press release) from both the project team and third-party assessor.

Details about New Jersey’s first Green Globes-certified project should be welcome news to Garden State legislators; earlier this year, New Jersey became the 12th state in the nation to incorporate the rating system into legislation, amending a bill that was enacted on March 5, 2007 to allow a two Green Globe rating as well as a LEED Silver rating (as was originally conceived) for new public construction greater than 15,000 square feet. As gbNYC has frequently observed, flexibility within green building legislation is important, particularly when mandates apply to the private sector. Should more projects continue to choose the Green Globes system, and perhaps cut into LEED’s market share, the competition fostered between USGBC and GBI to promulgate improved versions of their respective systems will be a positive for green building generally.

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Filed: Green-Construction