Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District’s state-of-the-art Renewable Energy Facility, Southerly Wastewater Treatment Center has received LEED Silver certification. LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. This $170 million facility in Cleveland, Ohio reduces natural gas usage by 98 percent, common air pollutants by 60 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15,000 metric tons per year.

DLZ provided building design leadership services in the design of the Renewable Energy Facility introducing an unprecedented grouping of energy conserving and generating processes to the District’s Southerly plant. The complex burns sludge from the Southerly and Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plants, converting the fluidized bed incinerators’ heat to high-pressure steam, powering an electricity-generating turbine, which provides 25 percent of the plant’s electricity.

The project redeveloped 48,000 square feet of underutilized land to house over 140,000 square feet in a 65 foot tall structure housing the unique process areas, process control, administrative, training and support spaces.