Morristown, New Jersey is an up and coming town in Northern New Jersey drawing young professionals and families to the area. 340 Mt. Kemble Ave, home to Morgan Stanley is a new office space that highlights the growing demand for office space in Morristown that intersects with new green building standards that organizations are looking for.
Completed in September of 2024 340 Mt. Kemble has 92,538 square feet of office space and was certified for LEED Gold under LEED v4 for Interior Design and Construction. The project achieved 60 out of a possible 110 points excelling in the Material & Resources, Regional Priority and Innovation categories. Within the Material & Resources category the project achieved 10 out of a possible 13 points only missing 2 points in the Interior life-cycle impact reduction and 1 in the Building Product Disclosure and Optimization category. Most all of the credits in this category focused on the building product disclosures, life cycle impact and construction waste that the project created. This shows the positive impact on the environment that the project is trying to have.
Within the Regional Priority Credit category 340 Mt. Kemble achieved a point for Interiors life-cycle impact reduction and Indoor water use reduction. Within the materials and resources that where used life cycle impacts where a focal point of the project. Life Cycle Assessments are a systematic way of evaluating the environmental impact of a product from the initial extraction of the resource to the final disposal. Think of a cotton shirt that you own: a Life Cycle Assessment looks at the picking of the raw cotton, to the production of the shirt, you as the consumer wearing the shirt and how you dispose of the shirt at the end of the end of its lifecycle. Within the Innovation Category 340 Mt. Kemble achieved 4 points out of 5 for Innovation and a point for having a LEED Accredited Professional on staff.
One category that the building struggled with is the Location & Transportation Category achieving 0 out of a possible 20 points. Most of the reason that this project struggled in this category is due to the location of the buildings as it is built in a more residential part of Morristown where people would need a car to drive and park rather than walk or utilize mass transit. The largest credit category that was missed is the LEED for neighborhood development location with 18 possible points. One thing that 340 Mt. Kemble can do is use electric buses or shuttles to pick up and drop people off at the Morristown train station that would help reduce people’s overall carbon footprint and help people to access public transport.
340 Mt. Kemble shows the dedication that New Jersey has to sustainable building habit and the desire that large companies like Morgan Stanley have to set the standard for green buildings. While there are areas in which the building can improve its score to achieve a LEED Platinum score having a LEED Gold building in Northern New Jersey will continue to bring people to the area to continue to invest in New Jersey’s future.
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USGBC Profile: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/morgan-stanley-morristown?view=scorecard