Building a Model for Green

Mecklenburg County’s Freedom Center posing multiple challenges

By Bea Quirk

The team converting the nearly 40-year-old Freedom Mall in northwest Charlotte to a silver LEED-Commercial Interiors government services center has had to develop plenty of solutions.

But there is still one major issue the team members can’t quite answer: Is it more difficult to attain LEED certification or renovate a 384,000-sq-ft structure?

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“Doing both a renovation and a LEED project was complicated and took all the disciplines working in tandem, “says Ruth Cline, studio principal and project manager for Charlotte-based Little, which served as both the architects and engineers. “So much coordination was needed, and it required a lot of back-and-forth communication.”

Architects and interior designers visited the project at least weekly, which Cline says was not a typical renovation.

“I consider it an adaptive re-use – converting a mall into a Class A office building is a pretty big undertaking,” she adds.

For example, the mall had no windows, but the office building will feature floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Mecklenburg County government, the owner of the new facility, is calling it the Freedom Center. It’s a three-phase project that began in 2006 and is expected to be completed in early 2011. When the 90,000-sq-ft first phase is completed early this year, the first of about 1,000 county government employees will begin moving in

Because of government regulations, construction bids must be sent out for each phase. A request for proposals for phase two was sent out in late 2007, with work scheduled to start this spring.

The Freedom Center project is acting as a model for Mecklenburg County as it begins to implement its Environmental Leadership Policy, passed in February 2004, which calls for all county construction projects costing more than $2 million to be LEED certified. Smaller projects also must have sustainable features. The county currently has four LEED projects under construction.

The Freedom Center’s green features include the generous use of windows and skylights for daylighting, low-flow toilets and waterless urinals, low-VOC paint and carpet made of recycled materials and a locker room and showers for bicyclists. An estimated 85% of construction waste will have been recycled by the project’s end, say contractors.

Mecklenburg County bought the mall about five years ago to consolidate several departments at one county-owned location. Although the mall was still operating, it was in decline, adding to the deterioration of one of the city’s major urban corridors. So the conversion is also a revitalization effort for the area.

Thousands are expected to visit Freedom Center weekly, and the county plans to sell some outparcels to restaurants or retailers.

Andy Locklair, vice president of operations and project manager for Charlotte-based Hendrick Construction, says that finding unexpected conditions is to be expected with any renovation, but those found at Freedom Mall were “more than typical.”

Still, Mark Hahn, director of Mecklenburg’s Real Estate Services Department, says none of the problems caused budget overruns or time delays. Phase one has cost approximately $12 million. The price tag for all three phases is expected to top $100 million.

“It was a real surprise to us that the existing block construction was not properly constructed – there was no reinforcing, there was a lack of mortar between joints and the foundation size was inadequate,” says county project manager Doug Buchanan. “We didn’t even have to use heavy equipment to tear the walls down.”

Unsuitable soil conditions were found when digging elevator pits. The mall’s roof had never been replaced and was in bad shape, and so a new one had to be built. The existing foundation and structural steel were modified and enhanced to increase the bearing capacity and to bring it up to current code requirements. New walls were constructed due to structural instability of the existing masonry walls. New water, sewer, electrical and HVAC systems were added. A mezzanine was also added.

“We barely kept the shell,” Buchanan says.

Adding to the project’s complexity was that the demolition and other phase one work occurred while the structure was still a working mall, with about half the space filled by tenants.

Hahn says the county wanted to avoid creating an “empty big box” in an area that was already economically frail. He adds that he expects to move the stores out over the next three years as construction proceeds.

“We had to be careful with the demolition to not deteriorate the existing structure,” Buchanan says. “Plus we had to keep the building secure.”

It also meant that shutdowns of water and power lines were done during off-hours when the mall was closed.

While the client was officially Mecklenburg County, in actuality, the building is being designed and constructed to meet the needs of several different departments, including Social Services, Information Services and Technology, Real Estate Services and Tax, and the Board of Elections. Each one had input in how its space would look and function.

“You need continuity among departments, but each one has its unique functions and goals,” Cline says. “We had to clearly understand what they wanted their space to do and then use our knowledge to create a space that addressed their culture and met their objectives.”

It wasn’t easy working for multiple owners, Locklair says. “Each one got exactly what it wanted, but it was a challenge to absorb the changes without time extensions,” he adds.

Meanwhile, Mecklenburg County wanted a signature building, especially when it came to green design.

“I challenged our consultants to create something unique,” Buchanan says. “It’s about changing people’s mindsets.”

As a start, Locklair and two other Hendrick employees became Green Advantage certified for the project. It was the company’s first LEED undertaking.

Locklair estimates the LEED process increased the paperwork required for an already paperwork-intense county process by about 25%. But, he adds, “It’s a better way to do business. It’s impacting the way we do work on other jobs and will change our estimating process.”

Little officials say they had never worked with photovoltaic glass before, and the installation required an electrical contractor with special certification. These roof-top solar panels create electricity for the building. But unlike other installations, these do not have a back-up battery for when the electricity produced is inadequate.

Instead, the electrical system automatically switches over to a feed from the local utility, Duke Energy.

The usage from both sources is being monitored “so we can evaluate the system’s usefulness, making it a pilot project for the county,” Buchanan says.

The existing parking lot was crumbling, with only about a .5 in. of asphalt over the dirt in many places. Instead of repaving it with asphalt, the project team chose to minimize the so-called “heat island effect” associated with asphalt by instead using concrete. The contractors used a paving process called ultrathin whitetopping to build the new parking area.

The HVAC system, instead of featuring vents in the ceilings, has them under floor. All ducts and cabling systems run through the 12 in. of space between concrete slabs and new access finished floors. The system provides a big energy savings, Buchanan says.

“We’ve got 21-ft-high ceilings, and it would require big fans to get the air down to the people,” he adds. “The floor registers can rotate to do the most good, and we are now only cooling the first 10 ft of living space.”