Harris Teeter will open its Crozet store in the Blue Ridge Shopping Center on Rt. 250 May 6 with an 8 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by corporate officials. The 42,000-square-foot store is the chain’s first designed to meet LEED standards for environmentally sustainable buildings. Based in Charlotte, Harris Teeter will open another new store in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the same day, bringing its store count to 181.

Harris Teeter spokeswoman Jennifer Thompson said the Crozet store will be 25 percent more energy efficient than the industry average. On other environmental goals she said, “We have installed water saving devices and fixtures that use over 51 percent less water. The refrigeration system will have a historically low refrigerant charge and all of the heat generated from the refrigeration system is used to heat the store.”

As a whole, the building’s materials are 38 percent recycled content and more than 30 percent of all building materials were manufactured regionally, defined as within 500 miles of the store. Fifty percent of all wood used came from certified sustainable forests.

Construction was managed so that 82 percent of construction waste was diverted from the landfill, she said.