Floating building is first to register for LEED

As part of a corporate-wide initiative called ‘Forever Earth’, global marina group Forever Resorts has applied for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification on a new floating structure at its Cottonwood Cove Resort on Lake Mohave, just south of Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the fi rst floating LEED-registered building in the USA and, if all goes according to plan, it could achieve the gold standard. Sarah Devlin reports

Lake Mohave, within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, acts as the border within the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona in the southwestern part of the United States. The lake itself forms the southern arm of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, formed when the Hoover Dam was built in the mid-1930s.

The 28,260-acre (11,436-hectare) stretch of water has only two marinas on it. Both are managed by Forever Resorts, a multi-resort conglomerate that acts as a concessionaire for the US National Park Service.

The Cottonwood Cove Resort offers a typical lakeside experience with an RV park, motel-type lodging, houseboat rentals and over 200 slips surrounded by a stark and dramatic desert landscape. Now the resort boasts a truly unique and green floating structure, built from sustainable products and with environmentally friendly practices.

This past year, when faced with the realisation that the operations building needed to be replaced at Cottonwood Cove Resort, Forever Resorts opted to consult with the US Green Building Council to replace the marina’s existing floating building with a structure that adhered to LEED guidelines.

“We have a contract with the Park,” Forever Resorts’ regional vice-president Rod Taylor conferms. “And they are trying to get carbon neutral. The money that comes in will fund projects and it benefits the public, the environment. It’s a natural progression.”

When planning the building, which replaced an existing 30-year-old structure, the architect and designer walked a delicate balance among the LEED guidelines, permitting requirements and the harsh marine environment, guided by California-based LEED accredited professionals, Ausonio Inc. They researched environmentally friendly practices from the beginning.

“In construction, there’s an enormous amount of waste,” Taylor states. “We recycled 57% of all the construction

www.marinaworld.com - September/October 2011

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