NRMCA, PCA Teamwork Pervious Success Story on Air Force Base

The P-161V AASF Hangar 1811 renovation project at McGuire Air Force Base has been awarded LEED Gold Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, due in part to including pervious concrete for stormwater management, reports NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Phil Kresge. Completed in June 2011, the project utilized 400 cubic yards of pervious concrete for sidewalks and parking lots.

The engineer for the project, Faye, Spofford and Thorndike (FST), first considered pervious concrete after Kresge's colleague, Senior National Resource Director Doug O’Neill, gave a presentation at its Burlington, MA, office. O’Neill and Kresge worked with FST to propose an alternate specification to the original Army/Navy pervious concrete spec. Ken Justice, promotion director for the Portland Cement Association – Northeast, assisted in the specification review. Justice also provided design guidance and contractor referral. The revised specification used on this project became the basis of the Unified Facilities Guide Specification (UFGS) for pervious concrete that is now the standard for all Department of Defense and General Services Administration (GSA) projects.

"This accomplishment is a credit to everyone involved on the project, including members of the AE team and their consultants, contractors and subs, Navy, Army and McGuire AFB personnel whose efforts resulted in a project that exceeded the government's goal of LEED Silver certification," said Jeffery Cohen, the project administrator from FST. The project earned 41-points, sufficient to be LEED Gold-certified under the LEED-NC v2.2 rating system, which was in effect at the time the project was under design. Using pervious concrete accounted for LEED credits for stormwater quantity and quality management.