ABOUT THE PROJECT
The new Shea Concrete Products headquarters was designed with two things in mind: to better serve our customers, and to better serve the environment. Located between the banks of the vital Merrimack River and the beautiful Lake Attitash, this new headquarters is designed with LEED-certified sustainability as a main project goal.
OBTAINING LEED CERTIFICATION
In designing this project, we’ve focused on minimizing impact on land to better protect the surrounding natural environment. We limited our construction to previously developed land, which helps reduce the pressure of over-development on the surrounding landscape. We’ve also focused on minimizing the amount of on-site construction waste produced by the project, and we’ve been able to divert around 75 percent of this waste away from landfills.
By using native, drought-tolerant plantings on the site and a 3,400-gallon on-site rainwater cistern for on-site agricultural watering needs, Shea inherently reduced the amount of water needed for irrigation by half. Our team has also worked to reduce unnecessary water usage by 39 percent compared to an EPA Energy Policy Act of 1992 baseline through our Stormwater Design Quality Control system.
Our design team has taken the initiative to make our new headquarters as sustainable in the long-term as possible with an insistence on renewable energy sources. We have added an additional 100kW on-site photovoltaic solar array to our already existing 390kW solar energy system.
Combined with robust energy-use optimization efforts to improve energy performance by 12 percent compared with the baseline building performance rating, Shea stands to drastically reduce fossil fuel usage in this new headquarters without sacrificing our production capabilities.
And since our Shea family extends to all of our staff, we’ve taken extra care to make sure our employees have an optimal working environment.
These sustainable building plans make for a work environment our Shea family can call home. We’re excited to officially start our residence at this impressive new headquarters in the weeks to come.
