B.H. Whipple Federal Building - Fort Snelling, Minnesota

Since opening in 1969, the B.H. Whipple Federal Building in suburban Minneapolis had not undergone a major upgrade to its mechanical, electrical, or life-safety systems until the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) allocated funding for comprehensive modernization. The ecologically responsible transformation that followed has beaten sustainability goals handily. 

Success hinged on multiple upgrades, which most notably included the boring of 800 vertical heat exchangers, as well as  installation of the nation’s largest array of evacuated tube solar collectors. Other examples of environmental custodianship include employment of photovoltaics, high-efficiency plumbing fixtures, a variable air volume handling system with optimized  fan wall array technology, and energy recovery units. Phasing allowed 800 federal employees to remain in the building  through construction.

The project team also coordinated individual green strategies to support each other. In one example of mutual benefit, insulation was added to wall and roof assemblies and existing windows were replaced with high-performing replicas to reduce heating and cooling loads on the geothermal system. Upon handoff to its fully trained operations and maintenance professionals, the renovated Whipple building reduced natural resource consumption dramatically. The design team predicted that systems would consume 48.5 kBtus per square foot per year—approximately half of code baseline already—while in the year following July 2014 occupancy, annual energy use intensity actually measured 42 kBtus per square foot. 

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