S.M. Stoller Corporation

From weapons to wetlands┬áOnce a Department of Energy uranium weapons facility, the Fernald Preserve Visitors Center is now a LEED Platinum-certified facility. Come peruse the blueprints with April Terreri. Once an iron and steel building serving as a warehouse for a Department of Energy (DOE) weapons facility that had processed uranium from the 1950s through the early 1990s, today the Fernald Preserve Visitors Center just outside Cincinnati is a beautiful example of a certified LEED Platinum facility. How did the dramatic transformation from ugly duckling to swan take place? The S.M. Stoller Corporation, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, was the general contractor for this project. Once the facility stopped producing uranium, the DOE contracted with FLUOR FernaldÔÇöa major architectural and engineering firmÔÇöto decontaminate and decommission the 1,000-acre site. FLUOR handled the environmental management, and Stoller took over in 2006 as the contractor for the Office of Legacy Management for the DOE. Stoller is an environmental consulting firm focused largely on the federal sector, with a majority of its work coming from the DOE. The company currently manages about 100 sites nationwide for the DOE. The site had housed about 800 buildings, and all but two of those were razedÔÇöone building to house the visitors center and the other for housing the groundwater treatment plant. ÔÇ£We operate and manage the active groundwater treatment, which occurs continually as part of the cleanup remedy,ÔÇØ Stoller president Nick Lombardo reports. The large warehouse contained a concrete floor and floor-to-ceiling industrial shelving when Stoller took over the project. ÔÇ£Part of our vision was to convert that building to a Visitors Center, with a target to achieve LEED Gold certification, and we achieved LEED Platinum,ÔÇØ continues Lombardo. Stoller contracted with the University of CincinnatiÔÇÖs design center and other independent consultants to work on the design content of the museum portion of the Visitors Center. ÔÇ£Managing the design was a monumental effort because of the design objectives involved and the number of contractors working on the project.ÔÇØThe project had about a dozen different subcontractors doing a variety of work, from the initial design of the building itself to the content design of the museum, says Lombardo. ÔÇ£We managed the LEED portion of the project throughout in order to achieve the maximum number of points toward certification. Several of our LEED-certified employees managed this, with Mary Sizemore leading this process throughout all the phases of design and constructionÔÇöfor which she received the PresidentÔÇÖs Award for 2008.ÔÇØLombardo acknowledges that the biggest challenge entailed transforming a rough and basic shell of a warehouse into a sustainable building that would reduce energy, electricity and water consumption, while lessening the buildingÔÇÖs impact on the environment. The 10,000-square-foot Visitors Center contains an exhibit area, a resource room, a meeting room, a museum and office space. One interesting feature is the huge atrium, which was designed so the front of the building aligns with the summer solstice, offering an aesthetic conversation piece. A manmade bio-treatment pond treats all the wastewater, which is then returned to the environment once it has been treated and cleaned.Stoller created a significant number of hiking trails and wetlands on the tract. ÔÇ£We have a variety of wildlife biologists and ecologists on staff that have catalogued and characterized the ecosystems in the preserve, and five endangered species have been identified here,ÔÇØ notes Lombardo.The US Green Building Council awarded 53 of 55 potential points to the building. Some of the notable achievements of the project include restoring 77 percent of the site with native and/or adaptive species; achieving 100 percent wastewater treatment; installing 100 percent low-flow fixtures; reducing 48 percent of energy consumption, compared to ASHRAE standards; using no ozone-depleting refrigerants; meeting daylight criteria for 78 percent of regularly occupied space; diverting 75 percent of construction waste from landfills; using 44 percent regional materials; using 24 percent recycled content materials; and using 52 percent Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. ÔÇ£There are even bike racks and showers to accommodate people who choose to visit the center without their cars, and there is also a designated parking area exclusively for hybrid cars,ÔÇØ explains Lombardo. A geothermal heat pump provides the majority of the buildingÔÇÖs heating and cooling requirements.The Visitors Center opened officially in August 2008, with the grand opening presided over by the Deputy Secretary of Energy, who christened the building. This is the second LEED-certified Platinum building for the DOE, and it represents one of fewer than 100 such buildings in the world. Lombardo reports that since 1980, when Stoller first began working with the DOE, it has worked on 2,500 projects for the department, and today the DOE is one of the companyÔÇÖs primary clients.Stoller will continue to monitor the operations of the building for as long as it remains the contractor. ÔÇ£We cohabit the building, along with DOE personnel, maintaining the operations of the Visitors Center,ÔÇØ explains Lombardo. ÔÇ£We also continue to monitor the LTS&M [long-term surveillance and maintenance] work on the site. Our wastewater treatment operators and engineers manage the groundwater recovery well field and the 1,000-gallon-per-minute water treatment plant. We also oversee all the monitoring requirements like surface water discharges, air quality monitoring and groundwater monitoring that continue through site maintenance initiatives. Our mission, as the Office of Legacy Management for the DOE, is to continue to monitor and protect the environment and public health from any deleterious effects from the DOEÔÇÖs facilities.ÔÇØStoller actively incorporates green concepts in the management and operation of all its projects. It has an active, integrated Environment Management Program that applies green concepts such as recycling, reuse of waste management, building management and land management. Stoller has many examples of integrating renewable energy systems into the Legacy Management contract operations and performance in addition to the bio-thermal heating and cooling system at the Fernald Visitor Center. It uses solar power to operate its monitoring stations and a solar heating system has been designed and installed at its Tuba City site to boost heating water capability before it goes to the evaporator, which minimizes electricity consumption. The company operates 15 offices nationwide and employs 600 people. Looking ahead, Lombardo says Stoller aims to increase the percentage of its private clients. ÔÇ£We want to move up the food chain as a facility management company,ÔÇØ he explains. ÔÇ£We manage about 100 sites across the country now, and we plan to bid for and win larger facility management contracts as we go forward.ÔÇØ ÔÇô Editorial research by Katrina Perley┬á