New hotel would be Driggs' biggest, world's greenest

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

By Sam Petri

At first glance it’s easy to scoff at the proposed 148,000-square-foot Teton Creek Resort Hotel and Conference Center as little more than another behemoth hotel with developers looking to cash in on the growth happening in Driggs, Idaho.

But while developers David Douglas and Rich Engler, both of Naples, Fla., are indeed hoping to cash in – any businessman is – they also are hoping to get people to come to their hotel for reasons beyond fancy spas, room service and restaurants.

The proposed hotel – designed by local firm Plan One/Architects and overseen by Green Building Consultant Kath Williams, of Bozeman, Mont. – is poised to be the first hotel in the world with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum Certification, the highest level of green building certification.

Despite a moratorium recently passed in Teton County, Idaho, barring all new development for the next six months, Douglas and Engler managed to slip in a request to Teton County Planning and Zoning to build a larger building than current zoning allows. Because the request made it in just under the wire, county planners can review it.

“We still have a long way to go to getting final approval,” said Teton Village Realty Sales Associate Bret Borshell, who is assisting in the project in a public relations role, “but hopefully the community will recognize the value of what the developers are trying to do and the positive impacts this could have … [they are] putting us on the global eco-tourism map.”

If built, the proposed hotel, sited on the corner of Ski Hill and State Line roads, east of downtown Driggs on the way to Grand Targhee Resort, would be the largest building in Teton County, Idaho.

To achieve LEED Platinum status the hotel building will have to meet a minimum of 52 out of 69 total points of criteria as set by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Criteria of note require that all materials must be nontoxic and come from a 500-mile radius, and all labor must be local.

The hotel will recycle 95 percent of its waste materials during construction, and will find a way to reuse grey water once the hotel is complete, among other green measures.

“Doing a green building takes a lot more thought. It’s not just the same old same old,” said Kath Williams. “We have got to think differently.”

Williams has overseen the design and construction of two LEED Platinum buildings in India, three in Taiwan, one in Australia, and five other LEED projects in the United States. She is also the outgoing president of the World Green Building Council.

According to Borshell, she “pretty much wrote the book on green building.”  
Douglas and Engler chose Plan One/Architects because of its past green building experience.

Plan One designed Wyoming’s first LEED certified school, Greybull Elementary. It also designed the Driggs Community Center, which is the first nonfederal LEED project in Eastern Idaho.

“As energy costs go up, green building is going mainstream,” said Plan One Vice President H. Robert “Bob” Heneage.

Even if Teton Creek Resort Hotel and Conference Center isn’t approved, the developers have approval to build 170 one-, two- and three-bedroom condominium units in 18 separate buildings along with a clubhouse, real estate office and maintenance building.

The project, called The Village at Teton Creek Resort, will seek a LEED Gold rating and is set to break ground this spring or early summer just south of Ski Hill Road. The developers are looking to make at least one building meet the “Living Building Challenge,” which is above LEED Platinum status.

“Rich [Engler] is originally from Germany. He sees this as a natural way of building,” Williams said of Europe’s advanced position in the green building world.

“And Dave Douglas just sees this as a better way. People come here because they love the environment. They want to see we are being responsible.”
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