Largest Pittsburgh Building Awarded LEED Gold

PITTSBURGH — BNY Mellon, an assets management and securities management firm, announced that its 525 William Penn Place facility in Pittsburgh has been awarded LEED Gold certification for existing buildings category.

 

The William Penn Place building is the largest building in Pittsburgh and one of three buildings in the region to obtain LEED EB Gold certification. The property’s LEED EB Gold certification was awarded based on its use of energy, lighting, water and materials in conjunction with sustainable building methods.

 

The building has decreased electricity usage by 7.7 million kilowatt hours over the last five years through the use of lighting control systems, lighting motion sensors and variable frequency drives to control the power supplied to a motor so that it matches demand. In the same timeframe building officials also implemented recycling and waste management programs and a green cleaning policy and made modifications to the plumbing fixtures to achieve more efficient water usage.

 

In addition to its LEED EB Gold recognition, 525 William Penn Place has achieved the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star award since 2008, and in 2010 it was named an EPA Green Power Leader. The company offsets the equivalent of 77 percent of its domestic electricity use with renewable energy credits from wind and solar sources.

 

525 William Penn Place opened in 1951, serving as the headquarters for the U.S. Steel Corporation. Today the 41-story, 940,000-square-foot building serves houses the Mellon National Bank and serves as the regional headquarters for Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland.