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Oberlin breaks ground on LEED Platinum hotel complex by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Oberlin breaks ground on LEED Platinum hotel complex by Solomon Cordwell Buenz

Work is currently underway on a new mixed-use development at Ohio’s Oberlin College that, once complete later this year, will include one of only a handful of hotels pursuing LEED Platinum certification in the United States.

The hotel operator is Olympia Companies, based in Portland, Maine. In addition to 70 guest rooms, the building features a restaurant focused on local food, 10,000 square feet of retail, a conference center, and a basement jazz club. Rounding out the facility’s 105,000 square feet will be offices for the college’s admissions and development staff.

The Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, developed by Cleveland’s Smart Hotels, was planned to be “the cornerstone of Oberlin’s Green Arts District,” at the intersection of North Main Street and East College Street.

Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz designed the project, which will draw on Oberlin’s existing 13-acre solar photovoltaic farm adjacent to campus. Smart Hotels’ Christopher Noble said the design team worked with the New York office of Germany’s Transsolar on the development of that solar farm, and the new building will not throw Oberlin off its target of purchasing 100 percent renewable energy for electricity by the end of 2015.

Mechanical engineers KJWW helped finesse the building’s fully radiant heating and cooling, which employs no forced-air ventilation—although some back-of-house areas will still use some water-source heat pumps, Noble said.

“We’re relying on nonconventional HVAC systems,” said Noble, who added that heating and cooling needs will be fulfilled fully from geothermal wells on site. The building is expected to be certified LEED Platinum after opening early next year. While the design team hasn’t assessed the payback period for the building’s sustainable features, Noble said Oberlin made energy efficiency a project priority.

“It wasn’t a cost issue,” he said. “It was a design issue—we were going to make a statement and do this.”

Of the $35 million total project cost, $12 million came from outside donors, including $5 million from the building’s namesake, the late philanthropist and chairman of Progressive Insurance Company, Peter B. Lewis.

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