Armed Forces Retirement Home New Commons and Healthcare Center Achieves LEED Platinum Certification

Tuesday January 13, 2015

The Armed Forces Retirement Home New Commons and Healthcare Center, the Scott Building project in Washington, DC, achieved LEED Platinum certification in January 2015. This is Hensel Phelps’ first LEED Platinum project in the District of Columbia and its first LEED Platinum healthcare facility.

Situated on the Armed Forces Retirement Home Washington DC campus, with spectacular, panoramic views of our Nation’s capital, the new Commons and Healthcare Center, the Scott Building, promotes sustainability, while offering state-of-the-art quality health care in a sleek, “small house” setting. This innovative energy-efficient structure, which replaces the old, costly, high-maintenance Scott Building, has been erected in the same location, allowing its Long-Term Care and Memory Support residents to remain near their friends in the Independent Living and Assisted Living facilities.

The facility was engineered “green” from the ground up to reduce its environmental footprint. To start, approximately 90 percent of its foundation was composed of recycled materials from the demolition of the former Scott Building. By understanding what the Client held as most important in the development of the design, the Team developed solutions that added “best value for every dollar spent.” Best value decisions that focused on sustainability, minimizing future utility costs, use of quality materials to reduce maintenance costs and comfort level of our veterans were the guiding principles for the design of the project.