D.C. Tops LEED Certification List for Second Year

The capital city had 18.9 million square feet earn LEED certification in 2011, or 31.5 square feet per person – miles ahead of Colorado at 2.74 and Illinois at 2.69.

Of course, the District has a few unfair advantages over its competitors. Being a city rather than a state, it has a comparatively high density of buildings, and a high proportion of those buildings belong to the federal government, which has pushed its agencies to adopt green building practices. D.C. also has only about 600,000 residents.

Washington, D.C. also came first in last year’s rankings, when it was followed by Nevada, New Mexico and New Hampshire. But those states are nowhere to be found in this year’s top 11.

The top states this year were:

A chart of the results is available here.

And some of the notable newly certified projects in 2011, from each state:

• Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., the oldest LEED-certified project in the world (pictured)
• The LEED-Platinum Casey Middle School in Boulder, Colo.
• The iconic Wrigley Building in Chicago, Ill.
• Frito-Lay in Lynchburg, Va., which earned LEED Gold for the operations and maintenance of an existing building
• The LEED Silver Hard Rock Café in Seattle, Wash.
• Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md.
• Yawkey Distribution Center of The Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts
• The LEED Gold Austin Convention Center in Texas
• SFO's LEED Gold Terminal 2 in San Francisco, Calif.
• The LEED-Platinum Hotel Skylar in Syracuse, N.Y.
• The LEED Platinum Marquette Plaza in Minneapolis, Minn.