An old building at the state capitol – built in 1940 – won national recognition for being green, while a proposed new building could use even less energy.
The John L. O’Brien building needed to be retrofitted to survive another earthquake. As part of that $50 million project, started in 2009, the state basically bulldozed the inside of each floor and started from scratch. Among other improvements: double-paned windows, high-efficiency heating and cooling, even landscaping outside that used less water and maintenance. And, they recycled 97 percent of the construction debris from the project.
Those details come from the Department of Enterprise services, which oversaw the project. For that work, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded Gold certification as part of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
All this work doesn’t simply win awards. It saves taxpayers money through lower bills, especially for electricity, and the efforts got their start years ago when Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish) wrote the state’s Green Building law, requiring new state buildings to get built green.
A proposed building on campus to house the State Patrol would save even more money.
The current structure is unsafe and needs to be torn down. The replacement building is designed to be incredibly lean when it comes to using electricity, with more natural light and ways to keep the temperature stable.
Here’s what Dunshee said in The Olympian story by Brad Shannon:
“It’s a leading edge building that will save taxpayers significant amounts of money and provide better working conditions for our employees, which will make them more productive,” Dunshee said.