Using an old industrial site, originally used as a rail yard and now a large a grain silo, I created a neighborhood design using the LEED for Neighborhood Development guidelines. Developing a site under LEED’s requirements is intended to make amends for the site’s past uses, while creating a mostly mixed-use neighborhood that will draw visitors from downtown St. Paul and revive the existing local neighborhood.

Through studying the LEED for Neighborhood Development guidelines a site layout was developed and analyzed on a credit-by-credit basis. The goal of the design was not to develop a project that achieved every LEED credit, but instead achieved as many as possible from a practical and sustainable standpoint. Considerations for street placement and traffic flow helped to determine a layout that supported the existing neighborhood. The project utilized twenty-six diagrams and graphs to determine the credits that were or were not achievable. The final analysis summorized that this design achieved 53 points (silver rating), but through a few programming and design decisions later in the planning, could earn up to 65 points (gold rating).