Each year, the Cleveland 2030 District partners with the Northeast Ohio Local Leadership Team of USGBC Ohio to host a friendly green building challenge to recognize exemplary new construction and renovation projects in our region.

Our panel of volunteer judges—all industry experts in the region—have named winners as well as honorable mentions for the 2022 challenge.

Award categories

The challenge included four main award categories:

Energy
Water
Transportation
Healthy buildings

In addition, the judges awarded an overall winner for the project that best exemplified contributions across all four main categories. Two small-scale projects were also acknowledged in the awards.

Award winners

Every submitted project had its merits, and choosing the awardees was a difficult task. Judges considered many factors—such as innovation and environmental impact—when making their decisions.

Overall winner

INTRO Cleveland

Energy

Winner: Oberlin College Sustainable Infrastructure Program South phase
Honorable mention: Progressive Campus 2 Solar Array project
Honorable mention: Case Western Reserve University's Maltz Performing Arts Center

Water

Winner: Waterloo Arts Green Roof and Alley Renovation Project, Phase I
Honorable mention: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse transformation

Transportation

Winner: Oberlin EV CarShare
Honorable mention: LGBTQ Community Center of Greater Cleveland

Healthy buildings

Winner: LGBTQ Community Center of Greater Cleveland
Honorable mention: The Lincoln

Small projects

Honorable mention: Ohio City Farm Bee Barn
Honorable mention: Fairmount Presbyterian Church electricity use reduction

More about the overall winner

INTRO Cleveland is raising the bar through innovative design, materiality and construction techniques to create something spectacular, engaging, sustainable and built to last. This LEED Gold project epitomizes the team’s prioritization of place-making to create an innovative and transformative space in a transit-oriented, vibrant and livable urban neighborhood.

"Buildings are the top cause of global emissions, yet construction methodology has traditionally been very slow to adapt over time," says Dan Whalen, vice president of design and development at Harbor Bay Ventures.

"Harbor Bay is an industry pioneer and thought leader in the use of mass timber construction for dense, urban, multifamily projects, and INTRO Cleveland is the first residential mixed-use project in Ohio to achieve a LEED Gold standard—and that doesn’t even take into account benefits from using a renewable resource or the emissions reduction over the project’s life cycle," he says. "We believe that it will take large-scale projects like INTRO Cleveland to move the needle on environmental benefits in urban areas throughout the country. And we want to lead this charge. We’re creating a sense of place that feels like a complement to the historic district while also innovating in a way that can set a new precedent for building beautifully with sustainable materials."

Project highlights

The project received its LEED Gold certification on Aug. 8, 2022.
At day of completion, the project was the largest mass timber project by square feet in the United States.
INTRO Cleveland serves as a transformational project in Cleveland’s historic Ohio City neighborhood.
Use of variable refrigerant flow (VRF) mechanical systems serving the common areas and first floor offices, paired with a central dedicated outdoor air system, created a highly efficient ventilation, heating and cooling system.
VRF also helps reduce fan loads and greatly reduced the heat rejection from the building by trading heating and cooling to different places in the building based on demand.
With a high glazing percentage (68%), high-performance windows helped the building still operate efficiently.
The building features Energy Star dishwashers and clothes washers, as well as reduced flow rates for showers and residential bathrooms, to help reduce the energy needed to meet the domestic hot water load.
Innovative stormwater control measures (SCMs) are projected to capture up to 100% of on-site stormwater.
There is access to public transportation, including the rapid Red Line station 0.1 miles from the project site and multiple bus lines within 0.1 miles of the project site.
Health benefits of mass timber buildings include lower stress levels, improved focus and attention, improved cognitive ability, increased creativity, reduction in pain perception, and a connection to nature (even in an urban context).
The building features materials with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Indoor air quality strategies, including CO2 and VOC monitors throughout the building, were employed.

Project impact

21% fewer CO2 emissions than equivalent steel or concrete buildings based on life-cycle analysis
34% energy savings annually compared to baseline (based on energy model-equivalent of 131 households or 1.25 football fields covered in solar, using Environmental Protection Agency data conversions)
30% reduction in lighting power density throughout the building reduced the electricity consumption
35% indoor water use reduction compared to a traditional baseline building (equivalent to 5.3 Olympic-sized swimming pools)
100% of stormwater capture projected using SCMs

Project team

Owner: Harbor Bay Ventures
LEED consultant: Emerald Built Environments (Cleveland 2030 District and USGBC Ohio partner)
Architect: Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture
General contractor: Panzica
Structural engineer: Forefront
Timber supplier: Binderholz GmbH
Civil engineer: GPD
Timber engineer: Fast and Epp
Mechanical, electric and plumbing (MEP): Windsor MEP
MEP (schematic energy model): Dunham Engineers
MEP (engineer/supplier): P&R Companies
Geotech Engineer: PSI
Acoustic Engineer: Shiner and Associates
Landscape Architect: SITE

Educational opportunities

To learn about the awards program, please join us for a live webinar on May 18.

Further details on the overall project winner, INTRO Cleveland, can be found through our on-demand webinar and during an in-person tour on May 18.

Connect with USGBC Ohio

USGBC Ohio and Cleveland 2030 District announce 2022 green building challenge winners