Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The first-ish LEED gold building in Bend

Media releases went out earlier this week announcing the groundbreaking for a new multi-use office building that Gerding Edlen, ODS Companies and Western Title & Escrow Company are developing in the Old Mill District in Bend.

The release touted the project, which includes offices and a dental hygiene school, as expecting to be the first LEED gold building in Bend.

Except it (probably) won't be.

Scott Steele -- whose almost-finished Steele Associates Architects headquarters is expected to get the first gold -- sent out a highly polite email requesting correction of the release (which the Old Mill project team did, swapping in "one of the first" where first had been).

I point this out not because the mistake isn't understandable (who keeps track of every LEED hopeful?) but because it is. As green building and LEED become part of the common language of building, claims of first-best-greenest-earthiest become part of the common language of public relations.

People should be loudly proud of their LEED projects. First or fiftieth. But it would also be cool if the answer to "who keeps track of every LEED hopeful?" was, well, the people making a claim.

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