Sustainability takes the LEED

Adding green concepts to a project under construction shows the Cleveland Clinic’s commitment to healthful environments

BY TODD WILLIAMS.

Although it wasn’t originally planned that way, the new JJ North Building is going green, and it will likely achieve a Silver LEED certification for its interior fit-out. According to project architect Carter Edman of Bostwick Design Partnership, the Cleveland Clinic’s decision to go green and achieve LEED certification, a directive straight from Clinic head Dr. Toby Cosgrove, came after construction of the JJ North Building was underway. Thus the interior fit-out of the new building became the focal point for sustainability planning. Edman expects that the LEED commercial interior certification will be bestowed on the project late this year or early next.
The Cleveland Clinic’s new $47 million JJ North Building, at the corner of E. 93st Street and Chester Avenue, is connected to the first phase of the project, the JJ South Building at the corner of E. 93rd and Euclid, expanding the parking and office space of the existing facility. That first phase, completed in March 2005, includes a 407,260-sf, 1,263-car garage and a 141,811-sf office building (both covered in BXM, issue 4, 2005, and available online). The new north phase houses a 365,874-sf, 1,224-car garage connected to the 118,151-sf office structure.
What’s green?
“We had to find a way to track costs and capture cost savings to achieve Silver certification,” says John Olach, the Clinic’s project manager. Collaborating on the design was the key. All partners contributed greatly to making the project green, and the initial LEED meeting was like a
charrette, says Christina Ayers, AIA, LEED-AP, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Office for a Healthy Environment. ”What was our baseline?” she asks. “Where to start? A spec office versus a LEED Platinum office?” The outcome was an energy- efficient building, and the team concentrated on creative solutions without sacrificing value.
The Cleveland Clinic, Ayers notes, mandates LEED certification for projects it is funding. “With LEED, we know we got what we paid for,” she says, due to third-party certification of building standards and performance. “Too many people think of the most expensive and least ‘bang for the buck’ items first, like wind and solar power,” Ayers continues. “You should start with site design and orientation first, as these cost no extra money, yet yield the most benefit. Then you address moderate cost and moderate impact items such as daylighting and energy efficiency.”
Donley’s, the project’s construction manager, worked closely with the Clinic for the LEED certification. John Berkebile, project manager for Donley’s, says that once the LEED certification goal was established, the firm provided the owner with green construction process options, as well as systems and equipment options (which included life-cycle costs), so that the Clinic could make the best decisions possible. One example was the recycling of construction waste, which was available at a minimal cost but had a big impact. “Over 100 dumpster loads were recycled instead of going to landfills,” says Berkebile. Rosby Resource Recycling, a specialist in recycling construction and other waste, recycled 88% of construction waste from the office, and 92% on the garage, further contributing to meeting LEED requirements.
Green characteristics in the interior design include the high-efficiency HVAC system; materials and furniture with high recyclable content (Haworth’s Zody seating system is a cradle-to-cradle, GreenGuard product and ultra easy to recycle, and the LifeSpace walls are modular to fit department needs and maximize daylighting); regional material purchasing (within 500 miles of the job site); Forest Stewardship Council wood, used minimally but effectively after a change order for kitchen cabinets and elevator lobby eating area ceilings; Energy Star electronic equipment such as fax machines, computers and monitors; low-VOC paint,
carpets, furniture, flooring and sealants; and a high-tech lighting control system.
Other green ideas in the structure include sensor faucets and dual-flush toilets to reduce water use by 30%, task lighting, low-e coating and glare reducing glass, furniture and walls arranged in a highly efficient design with the ability to be disassembled and reconfigured to avoid waste in the future, and ease of recycling integrated into the design of the building.
Tim Carter, project superintendent for Donley’s, explains that the energy management system controlling the lights works with the outside ambient lighting. As the outside light increases or decreases, the control system raises or lowers the fluorescent lighting in the building to maintain an even level. Then, at 9 p.m., the system shuts off most of the lights in the building, turning them back on at 6 a.m.
Mark Dorn, project manager with Harmon Glass, suppliers of the curtainwall system for both phases of the building, notes that the low-e glass, manufactured by Viracon, was silk-screened with a repeating bar pattern to reduce sunlight in order to save on HVAC costs.
Ayers noted that, in addition to the LEED credits earned for the fit-out phase of construction, JJ North would also get points for its density and connectivity to the neighborhood and the city. Its site on the Euclid Corridor Project is key to this credit. Also winning points are shower rooms for those who bike to work, with a lactation room as an added feature. In addition, employees in these offices have guidebooks as to what makes their space unique and how to work with the green features, including a brochure to explain the savings on water. In addition, she says, the Clinic hopes to gain an innovation point for having an ergonomist on staff.
Carter adds that the Cleveland Clinic is putting the concept of sustainability into its building planning, and noted that JJ North is much more energy efficient and green than its predecessor, which was completed only 17 months earlier.
Sustainability, says Ayers, is a vital part of the Clinic’s mission to address public health issues, and it includes the maintenance and operation of buildings. The architect is in charge of all the Clinic’s sustainability efforts, from farmer’s markets to dealing with medical waste. In addition to JJ North, four other projects under construction retroactively incorporated LEED design features after the Cleveland Clinic decided to go green: the E.89th St. Parking Garage and Service Center, the Hillcrest Hospital expansion, and the Twinsburg Family Health facility.

Constructing the space
Located across Euclid Avenue from the new Heart Center and the Clinic’s main entrance, the JJ Building is connected to the main campus via a large underground tunnel that allows easy access without having to deal with Euclid Avenue traffic or with unseasonable weather. With the location so close to the heart of the campus, both the north and south parking garages are important facilities for Cleveland Clinic patients and employees. In fact, the north garage was on a fast track to be completed before the office was even started, in order to accommodate rapidly expanding parking needs.
During preconstruction, Donley’s, who self-performed the concrete, worked closely with architect Bostwick Design Partnership. Donley’s formwork systems were incorporated into the design of the structure, thereby providing efficiency of construction and cost savings to the owner.
“We had to get that north garage open as soon as possible, so we went with phased construction in order to accelerate the garage opening. There was a dire need for employee and patient parking,” recalls Berkebile. “Self-performance on the concrete allowed Donley’s greater control over the project schedule and phasing, and also helped minimize risk to the owner.”
Another challenge was a switch made in revenue control during the end stage of construction of the garage. This change had to be closely coordinated by the Clinic and Donley’s to ensure smooth operation by the opening, including overseeing the installation of the cable and vendor equipment and making certain everything was functional and error-free. Through teamwork and communication, the team achieved this task.
Also, because of a shortage of office space at the Clinic, the building was occupied one floor at a time rather than waiting for completion of the entire building before move-in. Olach says that the project took people out of private offices into 40-square foot workstations, “so we had to make them comfortable. The various user groups had options for layout of the cubes, heights of walls, number and size of the conference rooms on the interior wall.” White noise masks conversation and helps concentration.
Berkebile adds that the office design is open in nature and will house the finance department, research and databanks, a patient call center, clinic employee services and media services. Unlike the south phase, which has a retail pharmacy, the north phase has no retail.

The two towers
There are two towers on the northwest and the northeast corners of the new building. The northeast tower houses the open kitchen and wireless work lounge for team projects, says Olach, in space dedicated to staff needs rather than that of individual offices–with only three such offices in the new building. The large windows, soft color palette and comfortable seating in this open area provide a relaxing atmosphere for project planning and team meetings. There are also several well-lighted, and comfortably furnished, enclave rooms available for more private meetings. These rooms have sliding doors to save space as well as translucent plastic walls to assure privacy yet allow light to pass through.
While the northeast tower is an integral part of the office structure, the northwest tower is actually part of the new parking garage. Looking at the tower and the entire north side of the structure, it is somewhat difficult to tell that close to half of the elevation is the rear of the garage. According to Berkebile, it was important to the Cleveland Clinic that the north elevation of the building not look like an open parking garage, because of the residential neighborhood across Chester Avenue.
“The north side has a skin and façade that makes the garage appear to be part of the office building. This unique, glazed, unitized curtainwall system has open slots for garage ventilation that are carefully placed to reduce glare from the garage’s metal halide lights,” Edman explains.
Dorn says the entire project was clad with approximately 50,000 sf of prefabricated metal panel curtainwall, designed by MK Architectural Metals. The unitized system combines glass, metal and a granicor veneer called Stoney Creek. The steel trusses were pre-assembled in Cleveland and hung on the building in sections. Dorn noted that using the unitized method is easier than building the walls on site. However, planning for the pre-assembled walls is more critical than stick-built construction, but the team made the planning and final installation seamless through communication and teamwork.
The garage and office building are also unique in the fact that both structures are built using the cast-in-place, post-tensioned concrete method. Edman explains that this is the best system to use for a parking garage, but it is somewhat unusual for use in an office building. It was done this way, he says, to ensure that the garage floor levels are the same as the office floor heights. According to Berkebile, nearly 21,260 cy of concrete, 471,738 lbs of post-tension cable and 1,300 tons of rebar were used on this project.

Partnership in action
Berkebile credits the success of the JJ North project to the high level of teamwork between the Cleveland Clinic, Trammel Crow, Donley’s, Bostwick Design and the many subcontractors. “Our relationship with the Clinic has been very productive. I know the Clinic’s construction management employees take a lot of pride in what they do on projects such as this. Their focus is always on the patients and the quality of care delivered before the building is even out of the ground and all the way until it opens,” Berkebile says. BXM

Owner: Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Architect: Bostwick Design Partnership
GC: Donley’s Inc.
Size: 365,874-sf 1,224-car garage; 118,151-sf office
Vendors:
Action Door, Action Door of Stow
Atlas Electric Co.
B&C Communication
Borchert Fence Co.
Carron Asphalt
Case Foundation
Cleveland Architectural Hardware
Commercial Industries Sheet Metal Group
Concrete Cutting & Breaking Inc.
Cook Paving
Donley’s Concrete
EPI of Cleveland
E. J. Construction Group
Foti Masonry
Gabor Enterprises
Giorgi Interior Systems
Harmon Inc.
Independence Excavating
Industrial First, Inc.
Infinity Paving Co.
Kapton Caulking and Building Restoration
Katanas Corp.
Lake Erie Electric
Martina Marble Co.
Mid Continent Construction
North Coast Paving Co.
Northern Ohio Plumbing
O. A. Berlin Co.
OCP Contractors
Otis Elevator Co.
Pro-Bet Enterprises
Reliance Mechanical
REM Graphics and Signs
S. A. Comunale
Signets Inc.
Simplex-Grinnell
Spectra Contract Flooring
T. H Martin Inc.
US Communications
West 3rd St. Construction
Western Waterproofing
Whiteacre Engineering Co.