Ice Mountain Bottling Plant
NWNA
Mecosta, MI

Worlds First LEED Certified Food & Beverage Plant.

In 2000, Nestle Waters North America asked Haskell to design and construct a 400,000 s.f. water bottling plant incorporating the new construction concept of “Green Design”.  In 2000 the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program was just released and began to bring a new focus on the ways to construct a facility and reduce the impact on natural resources.  The LEED program requirements demanded a new way of thinking about traditional construction methods.  This included:

• Water saving technologies for plumbing fixtures
• Innovative waste water technologies to reduce the impact on the surrounding community
• Roofing materials to reduce heat gain into the building
• Site planning for parking and stormwater management
• Energy savings for HVAC systems through the use of HCFC and Halon free equipment and fire-protection systems
• Methods to reduce contaminants during construction that eventually impact the occupants and users of the facility after the construction is complete
• Recycled content of materials that incorporate less raw materials and more reused materials to further the preservation of natural resources
• Products purchased within 500-miles of the construction site to reduce transportation environmental impacts
• Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) content of paints, sealants and adhesives
• Finish selections of paints, wall covering and carpets to reduce the VOC emissions and the impact to the building occupants
• Operational policies for smoking and carpooling by the customer

Our entire team worked closely together to understand and implement the LEED concepts into the design and construction of the facility.  The completed project resulted in the achievement of the LEED Certified rating, becoming the first food processing plant in the world to be recognized as a “Green LEED Certified” facility.