One of Pittsburgh’s hallmark green buildings, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLCC) has garnered national and international attention and acclaim for Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. When it opened in 2003, the DLCC was the world’s largest green building and the first LEED certified convention center in the world.

Constructed with public money and owned by a public authority, the DLCC takes its LEED certification seriously – and has not rested on its original achievements. In an 2-year process from 2009 through 2011, Green Building Alliance (GBA) led a local project that analyzed the DLCC’s green features, performance, and operations, past, present, and future.


Today, it's not just built green, but works green every day.  That achievement was solidified in April 2012 when the DLCC achieved LEED Platinum for its operations and maintenance under LEED-EBOM -- the first convention center to do so and the largest building in the world to be LEED certified across its life cycle at a Gold or higher level.

Starting in 2009, GBA led the process to frame, fund, and perform this building operations and performance case study.  The DLCC case study project team included:
  • Green Building Alliance
  • Sports and Exhibition Authority of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County (SEA)
  • evolve environment::architecture (evolveEA)
  • CJL Engineering
  • Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics
  • Civil and Environmental Consultants, Inc.
  • SMG
The DLCC is owned by the SEA and is operated by SMG, which manages event venues all over the world.  The case study was primarily funded by The Heinz Endowments, with support from the SEA.

The full DLCC building performance report evaluates the performance of the DLCC, benchmarks it against other convention centers, and provides recommendations to improve operations and how the DLCC markets its efforts to prospective meetings and conventions. Study highlights include that 38% of DLCC revenues since 2006 have come from green-seeking events, which brought approximately $144 million in direct spending to the region. The DLCC is operating more efficiently than initial energy models predicted, and is a leader in water use, waste source reduction, and overall occupant satisfaction.

Accounting for both electricity and steam use, since 2005, the DLCC has saved between 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 kWh, which represents an average annual energy savings of 15.5%, which translates to a reduction of 15,000 to 19,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Based on average utility rates from 2005 to 2010, this represents over $2,100,000 in utility cost savings, which is equivalent to removing over 3,000 cars from the road for a year or eliminating the amount of electricity required to power over 2,000 homes for a year.

DOWNLOAD: DLCC Building Performance Case Study Final Report (November 2011)

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