High-Performance K-12 Design
About CMTA
CMTA was founded in 1968 and is recognized as a national leader in high performance, sustainable design within the engineering industry. Our firm has leveraged our expertise in high performance, energy-efficient design into a nationwide practice that includes consulting engineering, performance contracting and zero energy design, technology solutions, and commissioning services.
CMTA prides itself on its data-driven, performance-based design process. Performance-based design uses benchmarking of our projects’ real-world energy usage as a challenge to our engineers to continuously improve energy performance. CMTA’s first signature performance-based design project was Richardsville Elementary School, the nation’s first operational Zero Energy school. Since then, our Zero Energy projects have led our firm into the national spotlight.
Because we walk the talk, we are true partners vested in sharing our knowledge with our clients. Our corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and our Lexington, Kentucky offices are both zero energy buildings with perfect ENERGY STAR scores. And our CMTA Energy Solutions corporate office in Louisville is the first in the U.S. to operate as Zero Energy and achieve WELL Gold certification. CMTA strives to create strong relationships with building owners and managers while also focusing on the health and comfort of the people who live, work, and play in spaces we design.
CMTA Headquarters Campus Louisville, Kentucky
Leader in EnergyEfficient K-12 Design
CMTA has been engineering K-12 facilities for more than 50 years and understands how buildings affect students’ success, health and wellness. We recognize that a building does more than house its occupants, it must promote student success by enhancing their comfort and health. This is accomplished through our attention to air quality, temperature, natural daylighting, reducing energy consumption, and WELL principles. We strive to supply school districts with the best systems for their buildings and users, while keeping operating costs low.
In addition to design, our leaders serve on technical and standards committees and regularly contribute to the development of the handbook and national high-performance building standards. In fact, we helped author ASHRAE’s “Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings – Achieving Zero Energy.” Three out of six schools featured in the guide were designed by CMTA.
140M Square Feet $17B+ Construction Value
NeoCity Academy STEM School Kissimmee, Florida
Osceola County Schools, NeoCity Academy
Kissimmee, Florida
K-12 Technology + Security Expertise
Integrated Technology & Security Solutions
CMTA’s Technology Solutions Group is a full-service technology-focused consultancy that designs electronic safety, security, communications, and technology systems that are fully integrated with other building systems, including mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection. This team has provided technology solutions for academic campuses across the country.
The team provides district-wide assessments of existing conditions and work with districts to weave emergency preparedness and response into the very
construct of the learning space, to narrow risk from a plethora of threats by creating concentric circles of protection.
Instructional Design & Technology
We bridge the gap between standard design and educational technology use in the classroom. For education projects, our dedicated team of Instructional Design and Technology Specialists work with the design team, administration, and faculty and staff to provide support to faculty and administration in the design and development of face-to-face and web-supported learning. This focuses
on educationally sound applications of technologies in the design and delivery of instruction.
We provide workshops, demonstrations, webinars, or other group sessions for faculty to support course development and instruction, focusing on the pedagogicallydriven use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. Our process explores other emerging technologies to facilitate teaching practices and student learning experiences and assist with the development of departmental policies and procedures, planning, budgeting, and priorities.
STEM Curriculum Integration
In the early 2000s, CMTA began using the buildings as a teaching tool, pulling back the curtain on building systems so staff and students alike could understand the effect of systems on performance. Watching our students lead tours of their high-performance buildings and listening to them explain the systems, and observing the interactions between the building and its occupants inspired our team of building science leaders.
Having pioneered some of the most student-oriented, interactive learning dashboards ever implemented, CMTA was not content to rest. As a result, our team of building scientists are once again ahead of the curve with CMTA SPHERE.
CMTA SPHERE combines the latest in immersive technology with virtual reality customized to a particular facility. Each SPHERE system is unique, designed to reinforce a project’s particular educational goals, and aligns with STEM goals that drive future success.
CMTA SPHERE Dashboard
Buckley Elementary School
Manchester Public Schools | Manchester, Connecticut
Buckley Elementary is the State of Connecticut’s first verified Net Zero Energy K-12 school and the first verified publicly funded net zero K-12 project in New England. Constructed in 1952, the building underwent an extensive renovation focused on sustainability, energy efficiency, and an improved learning environment.
CMTA began the project by creating an energy model and studying all features of the building envelope, including walls, windows, and roof systems. As the existing building was ideally situated in a north/south arrangement, its orientation remained unchanged for optimal glare control and daylighting. The project also included a whole-building blower-door pressure test to validate tightness of construction as well as thermal scanning/ imaging. The goal was to have a wellinsulated building that exceeds code minimum requirements and was also air/ water tight.
Led by CMTA, all mechanical systems were designed to drastically exceed code minimum. High-efficient geothermal technology is used to heat and cool the building, with the geothermal wellfield acting as a thermal battery for heat storage. The project successfully implemented an all-electric design, including introducing air conditioning, electric kitchen equipment, and ventilation, and still saved the school district over $50,000 in their electric bills in the first year. A 390 kW roof-mounted solar array generates enough energy annually to meet all the building’s energy demands.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2022
Size: 67,357 SF
Cost: $21,570,000
Project Type: Renovation
Awards / Certifications: Net Zero Energy Verified Connecticut Green Building Council Award of Merit
John Lewis Elementary School
District of Columbia Public Schools | Washington, DC
The 98,000-square-foot John Lewis Elementary (formerly West Education Campus) was the first-ever WELL and Zero Energy Certified K-12 school. The elementary school was recently modernized to reflect 21st Century learning environments and to address educational and programmatic space needs for the District of Columbia Public Schools. The school was designed to focus on occupant health and wellness, promoting student well-being and academic performance through healthy learning environments.
The healthy school achieved Net Zero Energy through high-performance building systems, including geothermal HVAC, LED lighting, daylighting, a tight thermal envelope, and roof-mounted photovoltaic array. With the rightsized, energy-efficient building systems, West Educational Campus will produce more energy than it consumes annually and achieve Zero Energy while saving DCPS in utility costs.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2021
Size: 98,000 SF
Cost: $60,000,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy-Targeted
LEED Platinum-Targeted
WELL Platinum
Frederick Douglass High School
Fayette County Public Schools | Lexington, Kentucky
The new Frederick Douglass High School is a two-story, 287,000 SF facility serving 1,800 students and 150 staff in the Fayette County Public School District in Lexington, Kentucky. The facility added the capacity required in the rapidly growing school district with the intent of being the district’s first net zero energy–ready high school. It also is home to the Carter G. Woodson Academy, a 6th–12th-grade academy focused on highpotential minority males in the district.
Energy-efficient approaches, like geothermal heating, demand-controlled ventilation, and high volume low-velocity fans (and, in the future, a roof-mounted solar array), keep operational costs for the 21st-century prototype school within
budget. As a result, the past 12 months’ utility cost has been $0.58/SF ($6.24/m2), which is the lowest cost of any Fayette County Public Schools high school. The outside air, LED lighting, and window glazing systems were also design options that the design team considered to ensure initial cost and utility costs were minimized. The school’s energy usage is 60% lower than the average K-12 school.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2017
Size: 287,000 SF
Cost: $62,300,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy-Ready
Alice West Fleet Elementary School
Arlington Public Schools | Arlington, Virginia
Alice West Fleet Elementary is Arlington Public School’s second Zero Energy project. CMTA implemented energyefficient, cost-saving strategies, including optimum solar orientation, a tight building envelope, appropriate use of glazing, occupancy sensors, and high-performance HVAC systems. Small, individual heat pump units provide the proper amount of conditioned air only when and where it’s needed. Air is conditioned by exchanging heat with the ground via geothermal wells underneath various areas on the site. A roof-mounted photovoltaic array offsets the school’s energy use.
CMTA incorporated the WELL Building Standard in the design, which includes over 100 features addressing the building’s impact on occupant health and wellness. Although this project is not pursuing WELL Certification, the building features design strategies concentrating on the seven WELL concepts of Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Comfort, and Mind. These features benefit all occupants while promoting health and wellness.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2019
Size: 110,000 SF
Cost: $46,000,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy
LEED Platinum
ASHRAE National Technology Award, 2nd Place
Jennings Creek Elementary School
Warren County Public Schools | Bowling Green, Kentucky
Warren County Public Schools takes pride in being a progressive school district, especially in energy efficiency and zeroenergy buildings. According to Energy Star, the median elementary school’s energy usage index (EUI) is 48.5. As of February 2020, Jennings Creek Elementary School operates at 15.0 EUI. With energy usage 69% below a typical facility, it’s the most energy-efficient school in Kentucky, and one of the most energy-efficient schools in the country.
The Data-Driven Design approach to size the solar photovoltaic system resulted in a cost-efficient zero energy facility. Although it was not a part of the guaranteed savings,
the net-meter solar design, combined with demand limiting control strategies, also offsets a portion of the facility’s electrical demand charges. As a result, Jennings Creek’s average monthly peak demand during a 30-minute period of time is 127 kW or 1.5 W/SF, which is ≈25% less than similar facilities in Warren County.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2018
Size: 88,400 SF
Cost: $18,400,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy
Jackie Caffey Jr High School
Alvin Independent School District | Manvel, Texas
The Jackie Caffey Jr High School, the largest in Alvin Independent School District, stands as a testament to efficient design and community-centric planning. Spanning two stories and covering 177,00 SF, this state-of-the-art facility caters to the needs of 1,000 students, emphasizing both functionality and sustainability.
The innovative energy-efficient design strategies have yielded remarkable results, boasting an impressively low EUI of just 23.4 kBtu/SF/yr. This achievement represents a substantial 51% reduction compared to the IECC for K-12 schools in the region. Not only were these efficiency improvements implemented in a cost-effective manner initially, but they also continue to provide ongoing energy cost savings year after year. The school’s exceptional energy efficiency translates directly into significant financial savings, with approximately $80,635 saved annually in energy costs compared to a typical Energy Star median-performing school facility.
With its array of modern amenities, including science labs, fine arts classrooms, gymnasiums, and a library designed for both instruction and community gatherings, the school stands as a beacon of progress within the Alvin ISD. By balancing efficiency, functionality, and sustainability, they set a high standard for educational infrastructure, serving as a model for future development endeavors in the district and beyond.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2020
Size: 177,063 SF
Cost: $37,400,000
Project Type: New Building Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy
LEED Gold
ASHRAE Region VIII Technology Award
Rock Ridge High School
Rock Ridge Public Schools | Virginia, Minnesota
The new Rock Ridge High School combines three well-known Iron Range communities and former athletic rivals into one — uniting as one school, team, and community. The facility will support cross-disciplinary learning through flexible learning environments and collaborative spaces. As learning needs continue to change, so will learning space requirements; therefore, the school is designed with the flexibility to evolve as future needs arise. In addition, with the support of local businesses and partnerships, the school will contain stateof-the-art career technical education (CTE) labs providing students ample resources for STEM education.
The high school is designed to be Net Zero Energy-Ready, with prominent features
including building envelope optimization (insulation, air-tightness, etc.) to eliminate perimeter mechanical heating systems as well as accommodation for photovoltaics.
The campus’ unique architectural design incorporates environmental elements native to the region and materials deeply rooted in the Iron Range.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2023
Size: 280,000 SF
Cost: $92,000,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy-Targeted
Graceland O’Donnell & Holabird Schools
Baltimore City Public Schools | Baltimore, Maryland
Tucked in the inner city of Baltimore, two existing elementary/ middle schools will be replaced with the city’s first two zero energy schools. CMTA served as the MEP, net zero and sustainable energy consultant for two new K-8 schools with identical footprints — each 94,000 SF, two-story state-of-the-art 21st century learning environment.
The similarity of the systems in the two buildings will allow for case studies of different energy savings measures to be conducted. Data derived can demonstrate the effectiveness of each approach. Energy consumption and cost will be compared and recommendations made for future building projects.
The buildings also have a community center open to the neighborhood and used after hours. This portion of each building is designed to utilize minimum energy during these times. Utilizing the sites as teaching tools, the schools are equipped with student gardens, outdoor classrooms, rooftop solar labs, and vegetative roofs that further push innovation while intertwining sustainable concepts in education — staying true to their mission to nurture, engage, and empower the whole child for life-long excellence.
Energy efficient design features include geothermal HVAC, ICF walls, all LED lighting, daylighting, solar photovoltaic arrays, and an energy efficient kitchen.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2020
Size: 94,044 SF/each school
Cost: $34,000,000/each school
Project Type: New Construction
Awards / Certifications:
Zero Energy
Net Zero
LEED Platinum
NeoCity Academy STEM School
Osceola County School District | Kissimmee, Florida
To increase NeoCity Academy’s ability to succeed at their STEM mission, CMTA designed the Zero Energy school that meets rigorous WELL Building design standards – both are firsts for the State of Florida. The mix of traditional systems with new technology helped bring this performance to reality— all without a premium in first cost or energy usage. In particular, a tight envelope to reduce the quantity of hot and humid air was a goal. This was achieved through great architectural details and diligence during construction.
The building design increases student performance by utilizing strategies that are supported by research and data to contribute to student success. NeoCity
Academy includes increased outside air ventilation in learning spaces to control peak carbon dioxide levels to increase students’ cognitive ability. The lighting design consists of both daylighting and LED light fixtures. This supports alertness during the day and aligns with our natural circadian rhythm.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2019
Size: 45,000 SF
Cost: $13,200,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: Zero Energy
2020 USGBC Climate Champion Florida’s First Zero Energy School
Thaden School
Walton Family Foundation | Bentonville, Arkansas
The Thaden School was founded in 2016 as a start-up private school serving grades 7-12 for the NW Arkansas region. The brand-new campus is located in downtown Bentonville on a 26-acre site that was previously a fairground. The school is committed to ensuring that students from all income levels have the opportunity to attend through a comprehensive scholarship program.
The initial project consists of four large structures on the west parcel with parking, playfields, trails, and a Bike Barn located on the east parcel. The short walk outdoors between classes fosters a sense of community and connection to nature that is not always present on a K-12 campus.
All buildings on the west parcel share a common geothermal wellfield serving variable speed heat pumps within each building. Occupancy controls and energyefficient kitchen strategies, such as induction cooking ranges, will help achieve the designed EUI 22. In addition to energy savings, daylight and enhanced IAQ were high priorities for the school. Spatial Daylight Autonomy modeling software was used during design so that daylighting goals were met.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2019
Size: 168,000 SF
Cost: $45,000,000
Project Type: New Construction Awards / Certifications: AIA Education Facility Design, 2021
Gamble Montessori High School
Cincinnati Public School | Cincinnati, Ohio
The transformation of historic Mercy High School into the James N. Gamble Montessori facility showcases innovative renovation practices. Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) collaborated with CMTA to overhaul the century-old building, accommodating nearly 1,000 students by August 2019.
Through strategic planning, the project merged historical integrity with modern functionality, necessitating comprehensive energy-efficient upgrades, including HVAC, electrical systems, and insulated windows. This approach, alongside water source heat pump systems and LED lighting, achieved significant energy savings while prioritizing thermal comfort and indoor air quality.
The design and contruction teams successfully delivered a cutting-edge
educational facilly in record time and at reduced costs. The building’s energy usage is below baseline levels, reflecting its commitment to sustainability and efficiency.
Project at a Glance Completion: 2019
Size: 143,200 SF
Project Type: Renovation & Addition Awards / Certifications: ASHRAE International Technology Award, 2021
West Charlotte High School
Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools | Charlotte, North Carolina
The new 338,512 SF three-story West Charlotte High School is built to accommodate 2,000 students. The new school includes classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art technology, a full auditorium, a natatorium, and a football stadium.
The building utilizes an enhanced thermal envelope that will be pressure tested to ensure a tight air barrier. Energy efficient systems are designed to lower the utility demand of the high school while saving the district money in operating costs annually.
CMTA’s Technology Solutions group incorporates the latest safety technology, access control, and video management systems. These modern technologies allow real-time monitoring and control while providing a safe school for the district, staff, and students.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2022
Size: 338,512 SF
Cost: $90,000,000
Project Type: New Construction
Jean Hofmann Center for Innovation
Carondelet High School | Concord, California
To spark creativity, collaboration and innovation for today’s 21st century learner, the new Jean Hofmann Center for Innovation reimagines both curriculum and space utilization to inspire student success.
The modern, two-story, structure provides flexibility, transparency and permeability with eight classroom environments surrounding a central atrium. This supports a range of student-centric spaces: classrooms, collaboration zones, breakout spaces, mentoring areas, student commons, maker spaces, and a café.
On the ground floor a 22’ wide x 13’ tall LED display screen supports presentations, group projects and events.
Interior folding glass panel doors allow classrooms to flex and connect to adjacent spaces. Garage doors connect the ground floor classrooms to outside program areas which improve visibility, ventilation, and natural light.
Project at a Glance
Completion: 2019
Size: 17,500 SF
Cost: $16,000,000
Project Type: New Construction