WCI Designs First Green New American Home

WCI Communities, Inc. has designed the first green certified New American Home, which previewed at the 2006 International Builders' Show in Orlando.

WCI's design of this year's New American Home received green certification from the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC) for its sustainable design.

It is also the first time a builder's in-house architectural team was selected to design the New American Home.

"We are honored to have been selected to participate in this project," said WCI President and CEO Jerry Starkey.

"It stands as a testament to an extremely talented architecture team that has time and again demonstrated its ability to design the most innovative green and healthy homes in Florida."

Each year since 1984, the National Association of Homebuilders has worked with industry experts and manufacturers to design and showcase the New American Home - but this year's home at 7,367 square feet presented a green building challenge for WCI designers.

The greenest home WCI has designed and constructed is the 2,195 square-foot "Casa Verde" demonstration home at Venetian Golf & River Club in Venice, Fla. Every home at Venetian was built to the 200-point minimum FGBC green building standard, a standard which awards points for energy and resource conservation as well as indoor air