Pat Lobb Toyota of McKinney - McKinney, TX - LEED CERTIFIED

 Pat Lobb Toyota of McKinney is the first "green" auto dealership in the U.S. and a model for other dealerships.  They earned USGBC's LEED - Silver in 2007.  Their motivation was two-fold: save money and it was the right thing to do.  The project architect was Gensler and the general contractor was Turner Construction.

The building at first glance looks like any other dealership but look around and you'll notice some not-so-subtle differences.  One of the main ones is the water cistern on the south side of the building.  It captures rainwater from the roof as well as the condesation from all of the buildings air conditioning units.  The water is used to irrigate the native Texas and drought resistant landscaping. 

Once inside the dealership you may notice several display boards (left and below) that help educate customers to some of the energy saving features incorporated into the building around them.  Some of these features include, Low-E glass fascade, starch-based carpeting, waterless urinals, low-VOC paints, recycled glass wall tiles and many more.

The roof is a reflective "sandwich" type insulated roof which helps to reduce the heat island effect caused by dark roofs.  This helps maintain a more comfortable temperature inside the building without using addional energy.  The concrete paving around the build has fly-ash, a waste by-product from coal buring, as an additive that increases the reflectivity of the concrete also reducing the heat island effect.  (left) the north and west walls are planted with a creeping green ivy which helps to keep those walls cooler during hot Texas days.

(right) In winter some of the waste oil that is recovered during oil changes on vehichles is used to heat the maintenance bays at the dealership.

The dealership has two areas used to wash customer's cars.  The floor drains in these areas capture the wash water and cycle it through a ionizing filtering system which cleans the water and allows it to be re-used to wash other cars.  The water is so clean that it runs off faster and requires less water to do the same amount of cleaning and also requires less hand drying after the wash.

To learn more about Pat Lobb Toyota of McKinney and their efforts to go green click the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMwZDs6YQ5I&feature=player_detailpage
http://green.autoblog.com/2008/05/16/toyota-pushing-dealerships-to-go-green-with-leed-certification/
http://patlobbtoyota.com/Eco-Friendly-Dealer/
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=sb_success.sb_successstories_mckinney07