Newpark Town Center is the first and only neighborhood in Utah recognized by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which is sometimes referred to as LEED certification.
“There are a couple in Nevada, but in Utah there is nothing else,” said Noe Flores, a spokesman for the Green Building Certification Institute, which oversees LEED.
Few projects were picked to participate in the LEED for Neighborhood Development program, which is a third-party certification, Flores said.
“The point of LEED is to build in an environmentally conscious way,” he said. “The importance of the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system is that it basically integrates green building, urbanism and a national system for neighborhood design.”
By stressing connectivity, LEED hopes the community’s design helps residents stay healthy.
“Basically, everything about this whole entire neighborhood is energy efficient, which means fewer car commutes because of where this project is located,” Flores said. “These are high-performing neighborhoods that not only save the neighborhood a lot of money as far as energy consumption, but also result in community connectivity, making these communities much stronger and more untied.”
Newpark contains housing, a hotel and commercial real estate east of State Road 224 at Kimball Junction.
“Mixed uses are the answer according to informed environmentalists. You can’t have neighborhoods that are homogenous, where you’ve got to walk to anything that is different than your house,” Newpark developer Jim Doilney said.
The clustering of a variety of businesses helps reduce traffic congestion, Doilney explained.
“It’s rare for a person to have to go to Newpark for a single-use trip because there are always multiple things they can plan,” he said. “Think of anything you want and I suspect that the first 20 things you mention are walking distance form Newpark.”
Meanwhile, buses stop at Newpark more than 50 times per day, Doilney said.
“We have an express bus to Park City on the hour that is publicly funded,” he said.
LEED has ambitious requirements for guaranteeing a development is environmentally friendly, Doilney said.
“The most important one is the location adjacent to existing development,” he said. “We had all the utilities there. We had the roads nearby.”
Doilney said approximately a third of the project has not been built.
“We had basically 300 adjacent acres and we developed on about 35 acres,” he said. “It’s a lot harder than subdivide and conquer.”
LEED is the only objective, third-party certification for land development, Doilney said.
“I’m hoping people will go out to Newpark and learn from what’s going on,” Doilney said. “I’m really hoping that we can build this out and create a model and people will come see it.”