The City of Lake Forest’s Civic Center is a 53,265-square-foot commercial project located in Lake Forest, CA. Verdical Group worked with Bernards to provide:

• LEED Project Management (BD+C v3 Silver Certified)
• LEED Fundamental Commissioning
• LEED Enhanced Commissioning
• CALGreen Commissioning

The municipal project achieved the LEED Silver level of certification under the LEED v2009 BD+C New Construction rating system. It was featured in USGBC’s Project Spotlight Series and also received a Sustainable Innovation Award at the USGBC Los Angeles Chapter’s 2020 Green Gala.

The project met 10 out of 10 available Water Efficiency credits plus 2 Exemplary Performance credits, plus 2 Regional Priority credits. Lake Forest, like most of southern California, is an arid region where the need to reduce water demand is essential. Water efficiency landscaping, innovative wastewater technology, and water use reduction strategies were applied to reduce the burden on municipal water supply and wastewater systems.

The project selected drought-tolerant and native species where possible and 75% of the plant species are rated as either low or very low by WUCOLS standards including California’s official state grass, Nassella Pulchra “Purple Needlegrass” and the critically endangered species Pinus torreyana “Torrey Pine.” The irrigation drip and bubbler systems are only operated between the hours of 9:00pm and 6:00am to prevent water evaporation loss. The irrigation schedule operates on a weather-based controller which automatically adjusts based on the local weather conditions. One hundred percent of water used for landscaping is non-potable treated recycled water from the municipality.

The municipal plant generates 155,727.25 gal of treated non-potable water which is equal to the captured site water. It fulfills the demand for the flush water. The flush water demands equals the water generated with 100% of demand of flush fixtures is through municipal treated wastewater. An extra credit was earned for exemplary performance since the reduction doubled the required percentage.

Innovative wastewater technology uses municipal treated wastewater to supply 100% of demand from flush fixtures. Low-flow indoor water fixtures were installed. The prerequisite only requires a 20% reduction from the baseline and the project almost quadrupled the requirement by achieving 79% indoor water savings.

The project selected a variety of materials to create a positive environmental impact and healthy environment for the occupants. To reduce the heat island effect products with high solar reflectance index (SRI) values were installed on the ground level and roof to reflect heat away from the building. Regional (10%) building products with recycled content (49.94%) and wood certified (10%) by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) were selected and installed. Low emitting materials with low to no VOCs for adhesives, sealants, paints, and coatings were applied to protect the indoor environmental quality.