Case Study:
Alberici Corporate Headquarters

Top of the Charts

By Jessica Boehland

We were going into uncharted territory, where anything was possible,” says Thomas Taylor, general manager of Vertegy, a subsidiary of Alberici Corporation, describing how his team achieved LEED certification for Alberici Corporate Headquarters. “Nobody on our team had ever worked on a LEED building, so nobody knew it couldn’t be done.” Which shows the importance of a good attitude: The building achieved 60 points—the highest LEED rating ever—on a budget of $147-per-square-foot, not including land acquisition or parking. “Sometimes being dumb is not so bad,” laughs John Alberici, chairman of the board.

After a long search for a new home, the project team settled on a 14-acre site in Overland, Mo., near St. Louis. A warehouse with three 70-foot-wide and one 90-foot-wide clear-span bays, each more than 500-feet-long, was still on the site. “The architect and I stood in the corner of that dim, dingy building,” recalls Alberici, “and we could see from edge to edge, and he said, ‘You know what we could do with this?’” That architect was John Guenther, AIA, principal at Mackey Mitchell Associates in St. Louis, who describes the space as a cathedral of steel. The team restored the site with more than six acres of native prairie. Retention ponds and a constructed wetland treat stormwater on-site, while rainwater collected from the garage roof is used in the building’s cooling tower and sewage conveyance system. Along with water-efficient fixtures, this practice reduces the building’s potable water use by 70 percent, saving 500,000 gallons each year.

The building was designed to use 60 percent less energy than called for in ASHRAE 90.1-1999, and an on-site wind turbine and a solar water-heating system combine to meet 20 percent of its energy demand. A tight and well-insulated envelope, extensive daylighting, occupancy and daylight sensors on electric lighting, natural ventilation, heat-recovery mechanical ventilation, and a building automation system all contribute to the structure’s low energy demand. Adding offices in a sawtooth line along the building’s southwest wall effectively reoriented the building due south, allowing it to take better advantage of daylighting.

When it first opened, the building was operating far less efficiently than it was designed to, but thanks to a sophisticated measurement and verification system, Taylor and his team brought performance in line with expectations, and they hope to push it further. In the latest round of operational changes, for example, the team widened the range of outside ambient temperatures for which the building management system activates free cooling. “What we found,” says Taylor, “is that it’s important to not just turn the keys over and walk away. You need to work with whoever’s running the building so it can achieve its maximum performance.”

Alberici Corporation opted for an open interior to encourage interaction and camaraderie. (Alberici himself doesn’t have a private office.) All occupied areas have daylighting, outside views, and operable windows. The company installed a white-noise system and sound-absorbent materials to preclude acoustics complaints common in open offices. Employees enjoy their workplace, and after the company’s first year in its new headquarters, the human resources department reported a 50 percent reduction in sick days.

The building has also profoundly affected the project team members, who have since encouraged a market transformation in the St. Louis area. Alberici likes to say that at the beginning of the project he had a couple hundred green building skeptics, but at the end he had a couple hundred people looking for the next green project.