Built on a restored brownfield, Nationals Park is the first green-built ballpark in the United States with a Silver LEED certification. According to a press release from Permaloc, “it may be the country?s first stadium to receive the United States Green Building Council?s LEED certification for environmental friendly design.” The LEED Silver rated ballpark features many eco-friendly elements including high efficiency lighting, low emitting finishes, highly recycled materials, and low-flow plumbing fixtures. “Nationals Park also has an intricate groundwater and stormwater filtration system. Given the stadium’s proximity to the Anacostia, the architecture and engineering team took great care to design systems that treat both groundwater and stormwater runoff. The ballpark’s filtration system separates water used for cleaning from rainwater and treats both sources of water before releasing them to sanitary and stormwater systems,” (Environment News Service, 2008).

A 6,317 sf greenroof has been constructed over the concession areas beyond left field to help absorb rainwater and reduce runoff to the nearby Anacostia River. The Permaloc Corporation, manufacturer of GeoEdge, was responsible for providing the edge restraint. The Permaloc press release continues, “The 41,000-seat state-of-the-art baseball stadium design was created by HOK Sport of Kansas City, MO. The $611 million dollar price tag includes many other environmentally friendly features in addition to the green roof, which contribute to the possibility of Nationals Park becoming the first LEED Certified professional sports venue.

“Everyone got behind it, or it would never have happened,” says Susan Klumpp, project manager for HOK Sport. “It was a new experience for a lot of people on this job. There’s no blueprint that says, ‘This is how you do a certified ballpark.’ We had to figure it out.” McDonnell Landscape, an award-winning landscape contractor based in Brookville, MD, was responsible for installing the green roof. ?Since the green roof is located over the concession stand, lightweight soil and materials had to be used. For this reason, the architect (HOK) recommended using Permaloc 4? GeoEdge for the gravel divider strips on the roof. We couldn?t have been more pleased with the product?s performance,? said Jon Fritz, Executive Vice President at McDonnell.” The Nationals Park greenroof is planted with 1,200 sedums, and the cost of the $100,000 living roof was covered by Chesapeake Bay Foundation (Real Estate Blog, 2008). McDonnell Landscape installed about 75 cubic yards of rooflite extensive mc to complete the project.