Rockingham Judicial Center awarded LEED gold certification

Rockingham County’s $37 million dollar project paid off as the County’s Judicial Center became the first in the eastern United States to receive LEED gold certification.

The 175,400-square-foot building boasts a courthouse, sheriff’s office, and 300-bed detention center facility with both minimum and maximum security detainees.

Moseley Architects announced the certification earlier this month. Dan Mace, the vice president of Moseley Architects and managing principal for the project, said in a press release the LEED certification was a risk worth taking.

The former courthouse was built in 1911. Clerk of Superior Courts J. Mark Pegram said he hates to describe the former courthouse this way, but it was old, outdated and no longer clean.

Michael Smith, the county construction manager, facility project manager and interim engineering and environmental service director, said he was surprised when the commissioners approached him about doing a LEED project.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather when the commissioners came to me and said they wanted to build it LEED-certified,” Smith said. “I didn’t even know they had heard of it.”

County Manager Lance Metzler said everything from the materials used to the services are local including the wood, carpet and windows.

“It shows a commitment to keep your money back in your community,” Metzler said. “It shows to the rest of the world we’re trying to be environmentally sensitive.”

Many things went into the judicial center to make it LEED gold-certified. The water usage in the building is so low, employees in the accounting department worried they were doing something wrong. Smith had to explain how low the department water usage is in the new courthouse compared to the old courthouse. Even the toilets have instructions on how to use less water when flushing.

The building is well insulated to cut down on cooling and heating costs. Trees were left in front of the building to incorporate the rural atmosphere of the community into the courthouse.

Condensation from the HVAC system is collected along with water in storm drains and stored in a trailer-sized container underground to later be used to water the lawn and plants outside.

The parking lot also slopes to a long island filled with mulch, which is used to filter oils from cars and can be later cleaned of the microbes it collects.

Conservation of energy was also considered. Giant windows were installed to bring in natural lighting. Lights are equipped with sensors to dim or brighten depending on the amount of sunshine outside or the time of day. They also contain infrared and motion sensors to determine if someone is in the room or not.

Pegram’s employees say they are seeing a difference in the building, especially in air quality. Smith explained the old courthouse was originally heated with a coal-fired furnace. Soot from the coal has collected in the pipes and, if a maintenance worker bumped one, employees could actually see clouds of soot come out of the diffusers.

Register of Deeds Rebecca Cipriani also sees a difference in the new building. Her staff had been housed in an old vault due to overcrowding in the building. This was the same location where large books holding important documents were located.

Cipriani said her staff, as well as visitors, had severe eye irritation from the old books being in the same room. The Register of Deeds office is now housed in a large portion of the courthouse. The books are kept in a climate- and humidity-controlled room with a fire system, which sucks oxygen out of the room in case of a fire, protecting valuable documents.

Smith said this building was possible thanks to the desire of citizens to invest their money wisely in the new facility. LEED stands for “leadership in economic and environmental design,” according to Smith.

Smith said instead of designing for the lowest initial cost, the building was designed for sustainability and lowest cost throughout the life expectancy of the building.

“You can build a cheaper building, but it’s the old axiom, ‘You pay for what you get,’” Smith said. “They don’t last as long.”

Smith said in 2006, bonds were floated around to pay for the building, and a temporary five-cent per 1,000 increase in taxes paid for those.

The conceptual design for the new courthouse began in 2007, construction began in 2008 and the building opened in May 2011.