Study: Milwaukee lags in LEED residential construction

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Milwaukee is severely lagging behind other major cities in the construction of LEED-certified residential construction projects, according to Madison-based apartment-listing service ABODO.

For construction project to be LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, they must meet specific criteria that demonstrate the use of sustainable building practices. According to the report by ADOBO, LEED-certified construction projects are expected to contribute $30 million to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by 2018.

The study found that the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis metro area ranks 174 out of 180 other major metro areas in the U.S. for the number of residential projects that have LEED certification. Milwaukee has only 17 such projects, while the nationwide average is 207.

The study also calculated the average number of LEED-certified residential projects per 1,000 people in each metro area. Milwaukee averaged 0.011 such projects per 1,000 people, putting the metro area at dead last compared with the 179 others.

Yet, Milwaukee’s few “green” residential projects average out to be quite large. The report found that the average size of these projects is nearly 66,800 square feet, putting the Milwaukee area near the top of the list using that metric.

The metro area with the most number of LEED-certified projects was Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, which has nearly 3,800 projects. The area with the largest number of LEED projects per 1,000 people was Jacksonville, N.C., with roughly 4.6 projects.