Nike Factory Store, Henderson, Nev.

Like the shoes it makes, the Nike retail experience keeps evolving. The sports apparel giant is currently rolling out a new generation of brand experience stores, a 21st Century take on the brand as cultural icon.

But Nike retail’s primary generator, says Long Beach, Calif., architect Matthew Walsh, is its more than 150 Nike Factory Stores around the country, an outlet concept that evokes the brand’s DNA of sport and innovation and combines the decades-old Nike slogan, “Just Do It,” with its maxim to “Do the Right Thing.” In this case, that includes building sustainably green stores.

Four Factory Stores have received the USGBC’s LEED gold certification. And one of its newest locations, in Henderson, Nev., is the first retail store in the world to earn LEED platinum status, the highest level in the certification program, Walsh says.

The platinum effort began in the exterior of the building, a former Nordstrom Rack store in the Las Vegas-area strip center. “All materials for the storefront – steel, metal stud, wood and exterior finishes – were carefully evaluated for recycled content,” says Walsh, chief operating officer of Innovation and Design in Architecture (IDA), the firm responsible for the Nike Factory concepts. “We also installed an insulated and tinted glass that allows sunlight in and keeps heat out, and a dedicated unit from the mechanical system that allows the storefront zone to be separately controlled and monitored based on the current weather conditions.”

Inside, an LED ceiling lighting system cuts energy costs by 30 percent and an energy management system, provided by Comfort Systems USA (Indianapolis), automatically sets lighting schedules and HVAC levels, and can be monitored remotely.

Nike occupied half the old Nordstrom store, but renovated the front of the other half so the entire storefront would have a finished look and feel to it and be move-in ready for a new tenant.

Just doing the right thing.