Tag Archives for: Parksmart

GBCI’s Parksmart Reaches 100 Registered Parking Facilities

November 09, 2018

 

GBCI’s Parksmart Reaches 100 Registered Parking Facilities

 

 

Building owners and parking operators rethinking parking structure design and operation to support more sustainable mobility

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (November 9, 2018) – Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) announced that Parksmart has reached a milestone of 100 registered parking structures. These parking facilities are located across seven countries and 22 U.S. states accounting for more than 137,000 parking spaces. As a registered project, the parking facilities are currently pursuing Parksmart certification. Parksmart works with businesses, cities and communities to develop parking structures that encourage more sustainability mobility, reduces the structure’s impact on the environment and improves access to places. The 100th project to register was St. Armands Parking Garage in Sarasota, Florida.

 

Parksmart is a performance-based certification that recognizes new and existing parking garages for smarter, more sustainable siting, design and operations. It provides property owners with a framework to build higher performing parking facilities that better serve the environment, customers and improve access to places people want to be. Registered projects are pursuing certification utilizing green building strategies that help reduce costs, encourage alternative modes of transportation, reduce CO2 emissions and conserve resources.

 

“Our mobility networks are shifting and it’s drastically changing the way we move around our cities and neighborhoods,” said Paul Wessel, director for Parksmart. “Registered Parksmart projects are committed to pursuing certification and are reimagining the role parking structures can play in helping us transition to a more sustainable mobility network.”

 

Parksmart has certified 24 garages in the U.S., Canada, China and Serbia and serves all space types including universities, airports, commercial office buildings, parks, sporting venues and more. Certified parking facilities encourage alternate modes of transportation like biking, walking, or public transit; reduce idling time and emissions in parking garages; increase access to electric vehicle charging stations; and reduce energy consumption through improved lighting and ventilation systems.

 

Building owners and managers interested in Parksmart can download the Owner’s Checklist to get started with the certification process. To help teams learn more about certification, Parksmart is leading an education session at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo on Thursday, November 15. The session will explore how parking structures have found triple bottom line benefits through certification. Greenbuild is the world’s largest green building conference and expo and is taking place in Chicago Nov. 14-16.

 

What Parksmart-certified projects are saying:

“The value to Cal Poly Pomona is unmeasurable. The number of Faculty and Students that join the University because we strive to make our University’s built environment less impactful on our existing stretched resources while still providing the best level of service is limitless. A stronger Faculty and enrollment requests help make us one of the leading Universities in the nation. We will continue to strive and set a positive influence upon others in our industry.”

— Bruyn Bevans, LEED AP, Senior Project Manager, Facilities, Planning, Design & Construction, Cal Poly Pomona

 

“Triple Bottom Line (TBL) helps optimize and align economic, environmental, and social performance. Investors and decision-makers can use the TBL Tool to configure development investments for maximum returns and prioritize initiatives that are also aligned with TBL goals. WE PARK aims to make substantial redesigns and improvements to existing parking facilities to position car park as the “Second lobby”.  We improve the customer experience not only based on overall look and feel but also reduce our operating costs by a series modernization measures, such as our national central control room, intelligent barrier system, LED lighting, auto payment system, CCTV cameras, smart signage, car park navigation system, etc.”

— Mark Cho, Senior Partner and CEO China at LimeTree Capital Partners

 

“There’s definitely a ripple effect to this. I tell people about green garages, and they look at me like, ‘Green garages? Really? What are you talking about?’ Then I go into it. They’re like, ‘Oh, wow.’ You put hands free readers in garages, so it speeds up the egress process. There’s less emissions and stuff like that. These are things that you may or may not be doing now. When you go to purchase new equipment, why not look into it?”

— Tim Hoppenrath, Impark, Parking Manager for Brookfield Sliver Spring Metro, DC Metro-area

 

About Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI)

GBCI is the premier organization independently recognizing excellence in green business industry performance and practice globally. Established in 2008, GBCI exclusively administers project certifications and professional credentials and certificates within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating systems, as well as the PEER standard for power systems, the WELL building standard, the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES), Parksmart, EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies), TRUE, Investor Confidence Project (ICP) for energy efficiency retrofits and the GRESB benchmark, which is used by institutional investors to improve the sustainability performance of the global property sector. www.gbci.org.

 

O&S Associates Commissions World’s First Parksmart Gold Certified Parking Structure

October 22, 2018

 

 

O&S Associates Commissions World’s First Parksmart
Gold Certified Parking Structure

 

 

Hackensack, NJ– 10/22/18 – O&S Associates, Inc. (O&S), an engineering and architecture firm, recently served as the commissioning agent for the Gold 1 Garage in Pittsburgh. This is the first Parksmart Gold project of its kind in the world to achieve the highest level of certification.

 

 

With an engineering team comprised of staff from multiple offices including New Jersey, Ohio, and Philadelphia, O&S inspected and evaluated the garage using an official scorecard point system. Grading was based on meeting specific standards for management, programs, technology & structure design, and innovation. For a new construction project to receive the Gold standard, it must achieve 160+ points out of a maximum 248 points available.

Parksmart, a voluntary, consensus-driven certification, is the only rating system advancing sustainable mobility and positive impact through smarter, best practice parking structure design and operation. Administered by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), Parksmart complements LEED and other certifications. Parksmart certification recognizes parking structures designed to:

(1) reduce their environmental impact

(2) increase energy efficiency and performance

(3) manage parking spaces efficiently

(4) encourage alternative mobility options

(5) strengthen community relationships

O&S was honored to be a part of this prestigious project, helping the Stadium Authority achieve this distinguished designation for its Gold 1 Garage. “O&S has been an innovator both as a parking consultant as well as a commissioning agent for MEP projects,” said William Payne, Vice President of O&S. “We couldn’t be more excited to leverage both strengths for our important client.”

This is the second project managed by O&S in the past few years to receive special distinction. O&S was closely involved in the extensive modernization and energy upgrade of Tremco, Inc. headquarters in Beachwood, Ohio. The building received LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, which is difficult to achieve for an existing structure.

 

About O&S Associates, Inc.

O&S Associates, Inc. is a full-service multidisciplinary consulting engineering and architecture firm specializing in the assessment and repair design of exterior walls, roofs, mechanical systems, and parking, as well as other building consulting needs such as capital reserve studies and expert witness services. For a look at other signature projects in the O&S portfolio of services, visit www.oandsassociates.com.

For more information, contact Soo Kim at 201-399-4375 or email skim@oandsassociates.com.

 

Park Assist: Parksmart to Present at Greenbuild Europe April 2018

April 04, 2018

 

Parksmart to Present at Greenbuild Europe April 2018

 

 

Evolving technology, new business opportunities and a growing awareness are expanding parking’s role as a transformative force for sustainable mobility in our cities, campuses, entertainment venues and elsewhere. Enter Parksmart —the world’s only rating system designed to advance sustainable mobility through smarter parking structure design and operation. Parksmart is a voluntary, consensus-driven standard that guides projects toward innovative, solutions-oriented strategies that benefit everyone from building owners and property managers, to tenants and drivers.

 

 

Park Assist has long encouraged parking’s embrace of sustainability. As an early supporter Park Assist contributed to the development of the Parksmart program. Today, Park Assist supports program growth through its Platinum membership with the U.S. Green Building Council, the organization spearheading the deployment of Parksmart at parking locations across the globe. Park Assist’s technologies help parking asset owners lower their environmental footprint by reducing idling and the resulting emissions, a benefit recognized by the Parksmart program.

GBCI’s Trevyr Meade will deliver a presentation on Parksmart at Greenbuild Europe in Berlin on April 17th. The Greenbuild event offers a forum for the green building community to unite, change lives, revolutionize business and address pressing issues, such as air quality, human health, energy use and global climate change. The presentation will focus on those aspects of Parksmart most relevant to the European market, and include a case study highlighting the first structure in Europe to leverage the program, the Obilicev Venac. The Obilicev Venac and other garages across the globe are utilizing Parksmart to reduce environmental impacts, increase energy efficiency and performance, manage parking spaces efficiently, encourage alternative mobility solutions and strengthen community relationships. Many of these assets have achieved Parksmart certification, an industry accepted distinction of leadership, quality and social responsibility. This presentation will provide asset owners the knowledge needed to be among the first in Europe to realize the benefits of Parksmart and bring certification to their parking garage.

http://parksmart.gbci.org/parksmart-present-greenbuild-europe-2018