At the end of their meeting on December 7, 2023, the Buildings and Grounds Committee learned of several awards from Colette Sheehy, UVA’s Senior Vice President for Operations and State Government Relations
The renovation of Gilmer Hall received the 2023 Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects’ Northern Virginia chapter in the Juror’s Citation for Institutional Architecture.
The renovation of the Chemistry Building won the a 2023 United States Green Building Council’s Community Leadership award in the Rise to the Challenge Award. Sheehy said that has reduced energy consumption by 50 percent.
“That translates into an annual cost-savings of $1.2 million,” Sheehy said. “In addition, we reduced water consumption by 60 percent for another $130,000 a year.”
UVA is also a participant in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge. President Jim Ryan was recently that goals have been surpassed.
“We had a goal when we joined the Better Business challenge in 2013 of reducing our net energy usage by 20 percent and in 2023 we exceeded that with a reduction of 27 percent,” Sheehy said.
Sheehy said UVA will also install more rooftop solar across Grounds, including installations at the School of Data Science and the Old Ivy Office Building.
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