In November 2009, SITES released its pilot version with the credits acceptable in the initial rating system. Approximately 350 projects applied through the February 2010 close date, including academic and corporate campuses, public parks with hundreds of acres, transportation corridors and private homes on less than an acre. Approximately 12 percent of the participating projects are residential, Windhager notes.

In addition to the Tempe Transportation Center, four other Arizona projects were chosen for the final 175 projects in the pilot program: the Paseo Vista Recreation Area, a 65-acre Chandler park being installed on a closed landfill; the Scotland Yard Neighborhood Park in Peoria, on a vacant 8.3 acre grayfield site; Troon North Park in Scottsdale; and the Downtown Links Roadway Project in Tucson.

The Tempe Transportation Center, and all other applicants, will be reviewed for certification by June 2012, based on a 250-point scale comprising 15 prerequisites and 51 credits for areas such as the site selection, water, soil, vegetation, materials, human health and well-being, construction and maintenance. The projects can then be Pilot Certified at one- to four-star levels.

A final version of the rating system is scheduled for 2013, when SITES will open enrolment in the program for any project in the United States to submit information for certification. “I’m excited to see how our Tempe Transportation Center will perform under this analysis,” Tempe’s Richardson says. “As we focus on smart growth in the Southwest, we need appropriate guidelines that establish and protect green spaces and enhance the walkability of our cities. The Sustainable SITES Initiative will provide a way to measure our success as we address the natural resource and climate challenges ahead.”

Adds Kane: “I hope the Sustainable Sites Initiative will foster more dialogue about the importance of landscape and the site relative to the built environment. We need to think about landscape the same way we think about masonry, glass and steel.

“The idea is to integrate architecture with its site and landscape and vice versa — each needing the other, neither more important than the other, working together like a natural system.”