Green Light

Ric Richards owns seven McDonald’s restaurants in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area. Earlier this year, he demolished an existing location in Cary and replaced it with what he hopes will soon become one of the first LEED Gold certified fast-food establishments in the country.

The green building was the culmination of more than two years of research and planning, and many of the energy-saving benefits come from new LED lighting supplied by Cree, based in nearby Durham.

“The environment it creates is very warm and comfortable,” Richards says, noting that both customers and employees have commented positively on the lighting scheme. “This is something you want to hear — we don’t hear this at our other locations.”

The LEDs help the restaurant consume 78 percent less electricity than the lighting systems in a typical McDonald’s. “If this is proven to be effective, you will see these types of savings in new construction and even retrofitting with regular lighting replaced by LED lighting,” Richards predicts.

A fully automated lighting control system combines light from the LEDs with daylight from skylights and Solatubes to maintain proper lighting levels on work surfaces. The restaurant has a total of 19 Solatubes that run up through the roof membrane and admit light, but not heat or UV rays.

The facility has one lighting scheme for day (up to 97 percent of which is natural light) and another for night. “At night, when the Cree lighting goes up and the Solatubes dim down, the restaurant takes on a whole different look and feel,” Richards says. “We have a daytime dining experience and a different nighttime experience.”

Should the restaurant receive LEED Gold certification this month from the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEDs will have played a critical role. “There are 10 points that we can achieve for energy savings,” Richards says. “Five of those points are achievable through energy savings in lighting.”

The attention to sustainability began during tear-down of the original restaurant. “After demolition, 99.1 percent of materials were recycled or reused,” Richards says. “Very little went to the landfill.”

All aspects of the property were designed to save energy and resources, including heating. The McDonald’s uses a hydronic boiler system, “one of the most efficient ways of using closed system hot water which circulates through building ducts,” Richards says. “Air is blown over coils in the ducts to heat the building.”

Cotton batting provides the same insulating and soundproofing qualities as fiberglass using rapidly renewable pre-consumer denim waste. A cutaway in the restaurant displays the insulation.

Rapidly renewable resources also were used in seating decor. Tabletops are made from wheat, birdseed or bamboo; some wall coverings are made from Kieri, a material similar to bamboo. The restaurant’s counter and lavatory countertops are made from Vetrazzo, a material produced from 85 percent recycled glass that “resists heat and looks like granite,” Richards says. Tile in the restaurant is between 50 and 60 percent recycled material.

Oil and water
All restaurant equipment is Energy Star rated. The low oil volume fryers “use one-half the oil [the] old fryers used,” Richards says. Less oil is used in cooking, and the oil that is used is “filtered more often so it lasts longer. We are discarding half the oil that we used to,” Richards says.

Landscaping consists of indigenous, drought-resistant vegetation, shrubs and trees that require no irrigation. This move, coupled with the installation of low-flow toilets, will save more than 550,000 gallons of water a year, Richards says.

Storyboard placards posted throughout the restaurant describe the building’s various green features, and a touch-screen monitor provides customers with additional information.

Richards also expects some labor savings to accrue from the use of LED lighting. The bulbs have a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years for interior applications and up to 20 years for many exterior applications.

While overall expenses were 10 to 15 percent higher than for a typical fast-food construction project, Richards expects that the project will quickly pay for itself through energy savings.

“The common thread with LED use is that retailers save energy, reduce maintenance and achieve a natural-looking interior while giving nothing up,” says Gary Trott, vice president of market development for Cree LED Lighting. The company develops and markets fixtures and lamps for many types of facilities, from residences all the way up to the Pentagon. It also sells components to lighting companies that are then packaged into light fixtures.

Parking lots are a popular area for LED installation. “LED puts the right amount of light across the parking lot without wasting a lot of light at the bottom of the pole,” Trott says. “The lighting is more uniform and safer.”

For retailers considering a retrofit using LED lighting, payback is generally about two years, depending upon regional energy costs. In new construction, the costs can be roughly the same as for fluorescents, depending upon the type of fixtures chosen.

Cree’s latest innovation, the PAR 38 LED bulb, promises to provide color similar to halogen while using 75 percent less energy. “In merchandising, you want color to pop,” Trott says, and PAR 38 “has a higher color rating index [than] halogen, especially for reds.” The company is currently working with national supermarket chains and department stores to install the new LED lamps.

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