One Mean, Green(enviro) Stadium For North Texas

Earth Teachling ^ | 10/28/11 | Susan DeFreitas

[DallasBiff]

With a name like ‘Apogee Stadium,’ there should be no doubt that the University of North Texas (UNT) was aiming for the utmost in green building with its new football stadium, and now the U.S. Green Building Council has recognized those efforts with LEED Platinum certification, making Apogee the first newly constructed collegiate football stadium in the nation to achieve this honor.

The push to build this 31,000-seat stadium to LEED standards was spearheaded by Lee Jackson, chancellor of the UNT System, who led an initiative to construct all future UNT buildings to meet or exceed the latest efficiency and environmental standards. The university currently boasts three LEED Gold certified buildings over three campuses – the flagship campus in Denton, UNT Dallas and the Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Two more UNT System buildings are LEED registered and currently awaiting certification

Green features of the stadium include landscaping with native plants, preservation of open space, permeable pavers and stormwater runoff reduction measures, as well as renewable energy supplied via three wind turbines that will provide approximately half a million kilowatt-hours per year for the UNT Eagle Point power grid, effectively eliminating 323 metric tons of CO2. The stadium’s efficient design reduces energy consumption by 25 percent as compared to a conventionally built structure of simlar size and function, while low-flow plumbing fixtures reduce water consumption by more than 52 percent

[DallasBiff]

Just saw this on NBC 5. They were all giddy. The lead engineer sounded Australian.

I would bet that a clean coal plant would be quieter than these wind turbines during a football game.

[RWGinger]

It really is a neat little stadium
and luckily for them it will still look new in 10 years as they average \ what 10k a game?

[glaseatr]

All I can say is congrats.

On building another LEEDS building that costs a hell of a lot more than it should just because some dumb assed liberal scum thinks he changed the building industry.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It seems all LEED buildings are disasters or nightmares for the occupants. Take a look at leed building nightmares for some samples.

The first football game will expose all the problems in this one.

[RebelTXRose]

It is a nice stadium - we’ve been to two or three games to watch my son in the Mean Green Brigade band... Had no idea of wind turbines...

We were there for the presentation of the award a few weeks back - for all it’s “green-ness”, on opening day in Sept, not all electricity was working (it was dark in the ladies’ rooms at one end of the stadium). Now, if they just had paved parking a little closer...

[DallasBiff]

The wind turbines are being built this week. The “whoosh,whoosh,whoosh” from the turbines may even alter the wind pattern, effecting QB throws and field goals.

[BfloGuy]

I’m curious to know what the additional cost to conform to the LEED standard was — if any. Other than the windmills, though, it all sounds quite sensible. The windmills are stupid.

[freekitty]

They are pulling a lot of stuff we don’t know about with the help of local sleazy politicians. They need to go as well as federal. They are all woven into the same cloth.

[jagusafr]

It’s supposed to look like an eagle. We visited with my HS senior daughter and I gotta tell ya, I didn’t see it. But the campus is cool...

[Bender2]

Re: ...no doubt that the University of North Texas (UNT) was aiming for the utmost in green building with its new football stadium...

Gadzooks, I am ashamed to admit... I went to North Texas State College in the late 60s and early 70s when we'd very un-green and un-PC drive around and around the campus for hours wasting gas by the tankfull just looking at all the lovely co-eds in their miniskirts.

Oh how I love to... recall those days!

Look, I even have the same frat wiseguy... smirk!

Well, I think you're some kind of deviated prevert.... I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts.--

[OrangeHoof]

For those who don’t know, the school’s colors are green and white and the team nicknames are the Eagles and the Mean Green. Therefore, the word green in the story doesn’t always mean eco-friendly. Sometimes, it’s just a pun.

BTW, Denton is a lovely city where I-35 splits off towards both Dallas and Ft. Worth. When my brother went to school there in the 1980s, they had the most beautiful women per capita that I’d ever seen.

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


Absolutely !


Denton, Texas is GREAT place ... lived there from 1995 to 1999 ...


"Denton Bible Church" (Pastor Tommy Nelson) is the finest ... Period.


.

[scrabblehack]

This sounds like another Enron Field.

[scrabblehack]

This sounds like another Enron Field. The company’s name is Apogee? (Ordinarily the point at which the moon is furthest away from the earth)

[RWGinger]

UNT is really gaining in academic recognition and it is a coll campus.
I made fun of their lack of attendancebut it is a neat stadium

clearly YOU have no artistic eye :)

I bet you have to use the audio tour when you visit an exhibit at a museum too.

I can see , if you close one eye and lean to the side a sorta kinda Eagle.

[Jedidah]

Started calling themselves the “Mean Green” when Joe Green was playing there ca. 1968-9.