Hannaford Bros. supermarkets, a regular retail fixture here in the Northeast, is opening a 49,000 square-foot store in Augusta, Maine, that will be LEED Platinum Certified.

 

It has some pretty serious green chops -- 96 percent of the building that was on the lot where the new store was built was recycled or reused, it has a 41 kilowatt solar power system, a 7,000 square-foot green roof, an advanced refrigeration system that uses half the energy of conventional systems, and water-free and low-flush toilets and urinals. The store will use 38 percent less water than your normal grocery store of the same size.

 

The well-known and respected Portland, Maine, architecture firm Fore Solutions headed up the design end of the project.

 

The store is only an hour from where I live (Portland) and I wrote to Hannaford Bros. requesting a tour of the store. I'm going to go up and shoot a video with my little Flip camera and hoover up more details on their project and plans for the future. It will open its doors on July 25.