Midwest

COLUMBUS, OHIO — In spring 2009, the United States Green Building Council formally launched a new program with the vision of fundamentally changing how the country evaluated green design and development, LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND). The launch of the LEED-ND program coincided with the first phase of Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Realty Investors’ Grandview Yard development: a $700 million, 1.2 million-square-foot, master-planned mixed-use neighborhood located in the fast-growing Grandview Heights community, just minutes from downtown Columbus and The Ohio State University. The first standard of its kind, LEED-ND embraces principles of smart growth and new urbanism, encouraging sustainable and environmentally responsible design and development on a broad and integrated scale. Like a scene in a movie that begins with the camera tightly focused on one element before zooming out to reveal an eye-opening new perspective, LEED-ND is about acknowledging context and connection. Distinguished LEED project Grandview Yard was one of the Midwest’s first LEED-ND Silver neighborhoods. When site work began on the first phase of development of the project in September of 2009, a comprehensive and ambitious on-site reuse and recycling strategy was already in place. An extensive and highly-coordinated warehouse demolition process served as both a challenge and an …