Pleasure House Point

An early conceptual rendering of CBF's new environmental education and community center at Pleasure House Point.

CBF's "Living Building" Education Center Gets Green Light

The Virginia Beach City Council on December 11, 2012, voted to approve a Conditional Use Permit for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) to construct what will be the most environmentally sustainable building in Virginia, located at Pleasure House Point. The city council's action clears the way for CBF to move forward with the Brock Environmental Center, named in honor of Macon and Joan Brock of Virginia Beach, who provided a $3.5 million leadership gift toward the $20 million project. The new facility will be built on a small section of a 10-acre parcel that CBF is purchasing from the Trust For Public Land—part of a 118-acre-track of dunes, marsh, and trees acquired in July 2012 by the City of Virginia Beach for conservation and recreation.

The CBF Brock Environmental Center is being designed to meet the Living Building Challenge™, a rare designation that requires that the building be so in tune with its site that it has "net zero" impact on the surrounding land, air, and water. The center will strive to meet a set of strict environmental standards established by the International Living Future Institute. As such, the center would be the first of its kind in Virginia and among only 18 prospective Living Buildings on the East Coast. (Learn more about the Living Building Challenge on the ILFI's website ilbi.org/lbc)

The center will house office space for CBF and local conservation partner Lynnhaven River NOW, include space for community meetings, and serve CBF's award-winning environmental education program which provides outdoor watershed experiences for 2,500 students and teachers across Hampton Roads each year.

Groundbreaking for the CBF Brock Environmental Center is slated for late summer 2013 with a target completion date of autumn 2014.

CBF hopes the new environmental education and community center will engage, inform, and inspire the Hampton Roads community to solve the Bay's challenges in innovative, sustainable, and collaborative ways.

Find out more about our vision for Pleasure House Point.

Twelve years ago, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation lead by example by building the first LEED Platinum certified building in the world for its headquarters in Annapolis, Maryland, the Philip Merrill Environmental Center. CBF looks forward to taking a leadership role again with its vision for this remarkably green facility for Hampton Roads.

Looking Ahead

CBF aims to have a ground-breaking ceremony for its center in the spring or summer of 2013. Check our website regularly for more progress reports.

For more information about Pleasure House Point contact CBF's Hampton Roads office at 757-622-1964.

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