Green Story

When downtown Portsmouth’s new Residence Inn / Harbor Events & Conference Center opened its doors in May 2010, it became the first New Hampshire hotel ever to be LEED certified. No small feat for a hotel that features 5 floors, 128 rooms, and a 4500 square foot adjacent meeting area.

While it’s only been open a short time, the new Residence Inn is already making green waves. When they tore down the existing building to make room for the new hotel and conference center, 80 percent of the waste materials from the previous building ended up being reused in the new hotel, in the process saving 81 tons of debris from going to a landfill. The newly minted LEED hotel uses 31% less energy than others of its size, and 40% of all the construction materials came from within 500, making it a hotel that is as locally-oriented as it is green. And their emphasis on reusing as much as possible means the emissions for the project were far lower than they would have been for the average hotel.

Inside the five story extended-stay hotel showcases even more green features, including: a heavy emphasis on natural lighting; enhanced air quality; a reflective roof that helps minimize the “heat island” effect; non-CFC refrigerants to help reduce the depletion of the ozone; pre and post consumer recycled glass, steel, and drywall – 30% of the total makeup – throughout the building; as well as eco friendly cleaning products for both the hotel and conference center kitchen.