Not an Easy Green

Firm's LEED efforts hampered by realities of existing structure

By David Silva

If Turner Construction Co. had a theme song for its 47,000-sq.-ft. office project in Anaheim, it would probably be Kermit the Frog's "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Construction began in November to consolidate Turner's downtown Los Angeles and Irvine offices into one location by renovating an existing structure at 1900 State College Blvd. Turner officials had anticipated the new headquarters would receive LEED certification in order to highlight the company's much-lauded sustainable building efforts.

But the existing structure, called the Stadium Gateway Building, was erected at a time when sustainable design wasn't high on developers' lists of priorities, and proved more resistant to change than Turner and project architect Gensler had anticipated.

"Turner selected the building primarily because of its great location and because it allows us to get all the square footage on one floor plate," said Chuck Albright, design director for Gensler's southwest regional team. "Unfortunately, inheriting an existing building put a lot of pressure on us as far as getting the points required for LEED certification. (For example), the windows didn't have insulated glass, so it's been a struggle for us to try to increase energy efficiency."

The U.S. Green Building Council scores buildings based on site sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, as well as indoor environmental quality. Buildings with 26 or more total points receive the basic LEED certification.

Bob Neiwirth, a project executive with Turner, said his firm has been in discussions with the USGBC to determine how things that are beyond its control, such as the building's existing construction, could penalize its efforts and "prevent any recognition of the accomplishments." He said Turner and the USGBC are now working on a plan to achieve LEED certification.

Gensler's plans call for all the office space to be built on a single floor, with the ceiling opened up by glass to provide natural lighting to 98 percent of the building's estimated 150 Turner employees. State-of-the-art lighting fixtures and duct system will further reduce energy consumption. Moreover, so much of the project involves the recycling of materials from the existing building that, since work began in November, not a single load of debris has been carted away as unusable.

"To date, we have not had to use dumpsters - we will once drywall is removed, but all the other items that are typically trashed have been removed from the site rather than to the landfill," said Neiwirth.

"We found a ceiling tile manufacturer who's going take the ceiling tile that we're not able to use, bundle it up and take it back to their factory to be recycled," added Neiwirth. "The carpet tiles in the floor are going back to be recycled. We had a lot of built-in cabinetry that wasn't compatible with our design, so we found a way to get some tradesmen to take that and utilize it for garages or whatever. Even our furniture supplier, Haworth, has a program in which their furniture meets LEED standards."

Turner's team includes Joseph Marfi, Victor Weisberg and Randy Boehringer.

THE TURNER ANAHEIM OFFICE PROJECT TEAM

Developer/General Contractor: Turner Construction Co.
Architect: Gensler
Electrical contractor: SASCO
Furniture contractor: Haworth
Key subcontractors: Martin Integrated, Martin Brothers, D/K Mechanical, Control Air, Rouse Co., Cal Protection, G&G Door, American Demolition and Lawrence Bonas.

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