Montgomery McCracken Awarded LEED® -CI SILVER RATING from the U.S. Green Building Council
June 16, 2010
Types : Press Releases
On the Heels of BP Crisis, Rating Demonstrates Firm’s Commitment to Promoting Sustainable Business Practices and Individual Environmental Responsibility
PHILADELPHIA, June 16, 2010 – Montgomery McCracken today announced that the firm was recently awarded Silver certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® -CI rating system for renovations done to the Firm’s office located on 123 South Broad Street in Philadelphia. The recognition is a testament to the firm’s commitment to promoting sustainable business practices and working conditions.
“While we are extremely excited about this award, we consider this just one of the many steps we are taking to promote environmental responsibility as a firm and on an individual level,” said Richard Scheff, Chairman of Montgomery McCracken. “The environment and sustainability is a growing concern and the recent crisis in the Gulf of Mexico shows us just how urgent the need is for all of us to play an active role in safeguarding our future-something we encourage among each member of our firm. Our LEED® certification is an example of how we can slowly but surely reduce our carbon footprint, one day at a time, and at the same time cultivate a culture that champions environmental responsibility.”
After a phased renovation process that took almost two years of planning and 11 months of construction, the construction was completed in November of 2009, and the building was awarded with the LEED® -CI silver rating on April 10, 2010. LEED®, a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings recognized Montgomery McCracken for performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. The project represents a successful collaboration between Montgomery McCracken, Partridge Architects, SSH Real Estate, Lakash Constructors and the HPE Group.
“This was a long process that could never have been completed without the dedication and collaboration of all parties involved,” said Tricia Sadd, an attorney in the Litigation Department of Montgomery McCracken and a co-chair of the firm’s Sustainable Business practice. “It’s truly wonderful to see our firm doing just what we advise clients in our Sustainable Business practice to do-that is to create “green” practices and policies. These in turn will promote productivity and profitability. Our goal is to promote a “sustainable” consciousness throughout the firm and we are thrilled for the acknowledgement of our work to date in this area.”
Montgomery McCracken first moved to its Philadelphia Headquarters at 123 South Broad Street in 1996. After deciding to renew its lease in 2008 the Firm’s management formed a committee to maximize work spaces while creating an energy-efficient and eco-friendly environment. Partridge Architects, a full-service architecture, planning, and design firm located in Center City Philadelphia, was retained to design a space that would qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certification, a U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org) suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
The project was completed in a phased implementation schedule to minimize disruption to the Montgomery McCracken staff.
“Montgomery McCracken was concerned for the well being of their professionals who would be living through construction and understood the health benefits associated with LEED initiatives such as air quality,” said Sari Hara, Senior Associate at Partridge Architects. “The Firm also benefitted from energy and water saving LEED initiatives, which offers savings in operating costs. It was a pleasure working with a client who was already dedicated to sustainable business practices and committed to the process. They relied on their team of architects, engineers and contractors experienced in sustainable practices to guide them through the process.”
About Montgomery McCracken
Approaching its century mark, Philadelphia-based Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP is a multi-disciplinary law firm with offices in Wilmington, Delaware, Cherry Hill and Linwood, New Jersey, and Berwyn and West Chester, Pennsylvania. Montgomery McCracken provides a wide array of legal services, with practice concentrations in litigation, business counseling, entity formation, tax, trusts and estates, labor and employment law, intellectual property, e-commerce, computer and information technology, professional liability, real estate, land use and zoning, environmental, health care law, bankruptcy and reorganization, governance counseling, employee benefits, nonprofit, and investment advisor consultation, among many others.
About Partridge Architects
Partridge Architects is an architecture, planning and design firm founded in 1987 specializing in interior architecture, design and sustainable design for the commercial market. Clients include Verizon, Independence Blue Cross, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Chickie’s & Pete’s Café, radio station B101, City TapHouse, philly.com and The Philadelphia Business Journal. Partridge Architects has been at the forefront of the sustainable design movement, and has completed to date 56% of the total LEED-CI projects in the Philadelphia area totaling over 300,000 square feet.
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