US: The Limelight Hotel Ketchum has been awarded LEED Silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council
The Limelight Hotel Ketchum, which is located in downtown Ketchum, Idaho, has been awarded LEED Silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
The Limelight opened in December of last year. It houses 99 hotel rooms and 14 for-sale residences. Throughout the building process, the teams implemented various sustainable features and practices in order to obtain the LEED certification.
Mark Vogele, project manager, Limelight Hotel Ketchum said: “To the town’s credit, LEED Silver was a requirement of the project. So we’re not bragging about that, we had to do it. What we’re proud of is where we went above and beyond code, above and beyond LEED. We focused on energy efficiency because that’s by far the most important piece of green building. We have R 42 walls and an R-70 roof, which is insane. We have double pane, low-e windows that have whole-window U value of .45. We have advanced mechanical systems with condensing gas boilers tied to a building automation system that turns off the heat when guest leave the room. It’s a really, really good building.”
The glass used in building utilises a heat-rejecting technology to block solar gain and reduce air conditioning needs in the summer. Built-in shades help with this process.
Vogele added: “One of the coolest things about the whole project is that we capture 100% of stormwater and process it onsite-that means we filter it and send it directly into the ground without entering the municipal storm system, where it would have dragged in pollutants.”
Other sustainably conscious hotel operations include using environmentally safe cleaning supplies, placing glasses in all bathrooms rather than plastic, as well as using soap, shampoo and lotion refillable dispensers rather than the traditional 1.5 oz bottles. The restaurant seeks to source 10-15% of ingredients locally and works to stock canned beverages in the kitchen rather than bottles due to the lack of glass recycling in the region.
