Bellevue, WA-based Aegis Living broke ground Monday on what it describes as “the world’s greenest senior living community.”
Aegis Living Lake Union, in Seattle, is on track to be the first assisted living building to meet the most rigorous global green/sustainability building standards with a Living Building Challenge certification and is participating in the City of Seattle’s Living Building Pilot Program, according to the company. Aegis Living said it has developed new energy and water consumption benchmarks that will be of use to other operators, too.
“This first-of-its-kind development is an incredible milestone for Aegis Living and the senior assisted living community as a whole,” Aegis Living founder and CEO Dwayne Clark said in a statement. “Charting new territory to create a sustainable, green-certified facility that meets the unique needs of our residents demonstrates that building green can be achieved in this industry.”
The building will include a mix of studio and one-bedroom options and select apartments dedicated to memory care — 79 units in total.
Built to be emission-free, Aegis Living Lake Union will use standard electricity to support the entire 73,437 square-foot building, including large appliances and kitchen equipment, in an effort to significantly reduce the community’s overall environmental impact. The community will offset more than the building’s total energy demand through various energy reduction measures, an onsite solar array and an offsite solar energy farm, Aegis Living said.
Key features include triple pane window glazing and thermal insulation for exterior walls, heat recovery through forced-air ventilation, a recirculating heat pump system, LED lighting and sensors to monitor use, installation of all high-efficiency appliances and more. The community is expected to save approximately 320,000 kilowatt-hours annually – equivalent to planting more than 12,000 trees each year. Another 1.7 million kilowatt hours will be generated between the solar array and offsite energy farm.
Additionally, all non-drinking water will be supplied through captured rainwater and treated greywater; the community will reserve potable water for consumption only. These measures will save more than 140,000 gallons of water annually for the life of the building, Aegis Living estimated.
“Navigating how we would offset our building’s total energy demand with full-time resident use has been a challenging, yet rewarding process,” Aegis Living Senior Vice President of Development Walter Braun said. “We look forward to the development process and seeing our vision come to life.”
