Biscayne Hall at South Village Community

Project Description:

Matern was part of the team that helped attain LEED®  Silver Certification for the Biscayne Hall Dormitory at Florida Gulf Coast University’s South Student Housing development. The project consists of a new five floor student housing facility having approximately 400 beds and total building area of approximately 120,545 SF. The facility is made up of mostly two bedroom suites conditioned by vertical 2 pipe fan coil units located in the suite vestibule. The core of the facility contains multipurpose rooms, a computer lab, a laundry room, student lounges, a fitness room, study rooms, and central mail boxes for all suites.

Matern provided mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering design services that resulted in achieving 10 of the total 34 earned LEED® credit points.  Matern was also instrumental in achieving 4 of the 7 required prerequisites. Matern provided the energy modeling services required for EA Credits 1 and 2 and the fundamental commissioning services required for EA Prerequisite 1.  Design considerations that were implemented to help achieve these credits were energy recovery technology, environmentally friendly refrigerants, domestic solar water heating system, low flow plumbing fixtures, lighting and temperature control strategies, and high efficiency air filtration. 

Significant energy savings were realized compared to an otherwise identical dormitory building that was built on the same site just one year earlier. These energy savings convinced the owner that the LEED®  process was beneficial and confirmed their direction to make all future buildings on campus LEED®  Silver Certified as a minimum.  

Lessons Learned:

Particular challenges were that the pursuit of LEED®  certification began after the building was essentially designed based on a previous building. Selected design strategies were implemented into the project late in the design process to help achieve the LEED®  silver rating without requiring extensive redesign of the building’s energy systems. Biscayne Hall is the first building on Florida Gulf Coast University’s campus to achieve LEED®  certification and only the third LEED®  certified building in Lee County, FL.