PENSACOLA, Fla. -
LEED is part of the U.S. Green Building Council's Green Building Rating System, a voluntary, national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable, and certified environmentally friendly green buildings.
"We are currently employing about 950 people in our Pensacola operations, and turnover has dropped from more than 60% to less than 20%," said Ebb Ebbesen, SVP-construction and process improvement for Navy FCU. "This saves a lot of investment in hiring, training and knowledge retention. We obviously created a workplace environment that promotes employee comfort and job satisfaction-a place where people will want to work for years to come."
The Pensacola center is the CU's first large operational facility outside of its Virginia headquarters. With the completion of the 52-acre campus, featuring a final total of four green office buildings and more than 640,000 square feet of space, Navy Federal expects to grow to 3,000 employees.
The goals for the initial LEED project were to develop an employee-focused facility while reducing capital costs, energy costs, healthcare costs and increasing employee productivity and retention. After visiting more than 60 properties, the CU chose Pensacola because of its 60 acres of undeveloped land, exceptional labor force, and robust infrastructure, according to Navy Federal.
Modeled after its Virginia headquarters-another LEED facility-highlights of the building include: a 400-foot long glass wall providing each employee with a view of outdoors while automated shades maintain optimal lighting level, individual airflow controls allowing employees to manage their comfort levels, workstations with environmentally friendly products and panels featuring local scenery, daily fresh flowers for employees' desks and indoor palm gardens, a fitness center on site with a staff nurse for addressing employee health concerns, a quiet room with a small library and web-browsing stations, a training center, and counseling rooms and teaming areas.
As part of the campus' energy- and resource-saving design, irrigation needs are minimized with native plants, bio-swales divert rainwater to a pond for watering during dry spells, more than 80% of construction waste was recycled and carpet tiles are made of recyclable materials, materials were purchased from local manufacturers to save on shipping fuel cost, only environmentally friendly products are used, a white roof reflects more than 80% of the sun's rays to minimize heat, and aerators and motion sensors in restroom faucets conserve water.
