Campus of angles in City of Angels by Michael Burnham - 1.30.06

The Los Angeles Community College District recently began construction on the first U.S. building to receive certification under the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), a green building certification used widely in the United Kingdom.

Like the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) system, BREEAM uses third-party assessors to rate a project’s environmental performance according to energy and land use, pollution mitigation, as well as proximity to public amenities. While a LEED rating is awarded only to completed projects, BREEAM may be awarded during construction.

Construction crews are converting the 1931 Van de Kamp’s Holland Dutch Bakery into a new seven-acre Northeast Campus for Los Angeles City College. District officials said they plan to register the remodeled building for LEED certification.

“We want to be able to assess the strengths of both systems, and the weaknesses, for that matter,” said Larry Eisenberg, the district’s executive director for facilities planning and development.

The campus is part of the largest public-sector green building development in the United States, Eisenberg said. A pair of voter-passed bond measures is providing $2.2 billion to build 44 new energy- and water-efficient facilities at nine public colleges throughout Los Angeles County by 2012.

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