Visualize yourself in the ultimate office space…..an office where the air you breathe is odor-free and very, very clean. A space where the temperature is of your choosing and there is plenty of day lighting with outside views through the windows. The traffic pattern and “flow” through the office is one you have designed and it is quiet and insulated from outside noises. The Siskiyou Medical Building has been designed and constructed to provide the healthiest and most productive office space in the Rogue Valley. It has done so by utilizing the building science, technology, products and operations required by the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED program. (a coalition of industry leaders in the fields of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Commissioning, Planning and Government-among others). The Siskiyou Medical Building will be a true “Green Building”-rather than a building with one or two ‘green’ features with claims to be Green…a term known as “greenwashing.” The benefits of a true Green Building are a healthier space for the occupants and markedly decreased negative impacts to the local and regional environment. The Siskiyou Medical Building will offer space that has been carefully planned to offer many advantages to its occupants that are not available in standard commercial construction. These include the amenities noted above and many more. Office space is offered to Health professionals and other office based businesses.
The Siskiyou Medical Building is located at 2924 Siskiyou Boulevard in Medford. It is located directly East of the Rogue Valley Medical Center. It is directly adjacent to Adam’s Deli, the best lunch restaurant in the area The SMB is blocks away from an RVTD Bus stop and has direct access to Barnett Avenue, a major artery that connects with the I-5 Freeway.
While the external appearance of the Siskiyou Medical Building is not dramatically different from many standard office buildings, there are many features that are included in the design and construction that will benefit those who occupy the building.
This building has been designed so that the occupants can take advantage of healthy, natural day lighting in every space-depending on their needs and desires. Day lighting has been shown to increase the productivity, health and morale in multiple work environments-from schools and retail to office buildings.11,2,3 The use of photo responsive lighting controls can maintain consistent light levels and maximize visibility for any working environment. Increased day lighting minimizes seasonal swings in productivity during winter or dark months. Virtually unlimited design options are available to customize the amount of light that can be brought into the workspace or exclude it, to meet the needs of each particular area. Having daylight available for the working space adds many benefits to those who work there.
The Siskiyou Medical Building will provide the cleanest air of any office building in Southern Oregon as a result of the advanced HVAC system. This system will also allow the occupants to control the temperature in their space. Both features are important for good Indoor Air Quality. Many other factors have been considered to improve the Indoor Air Quality of this building (please continue reading for a more in-depth discussion of those factors).
The Siskiyou Medical Building has been constructed with many features not found in normal buildings for very specific reasons. These features combined will result in the healthiest indoor air of any building in the Rogue Valley. The air we breathe when indoors is affected by everything from the chemicals used in making the particleboard and plywood that comprise the floors and walls, the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) which are slowly given off from the carpets, the carpet backing, the adhesives and sealants, the paints & finishes used and the organisms (such as molds and bacteria) that grow behind the walls and in the ductwork of the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system to the chemicals used for cleaning—even the perfumes and other odors carried in on the people who enter the building. The LEED reference manual for new construction is a 330-page document, which provides very rigorous specifications for achieving LEED certification. More than 80 pages of which are devoted entirely to indoor air quality. One feature that has a large, long term impact on the indoor air quality is the great length that has been taken to find and purchase materials which produce no or very low VOCs. The sub flooring used will not off gas any formaldehyde (a very toxic, carcinogenic compound used in manufacturing most plywoods and particleboards.) This will eliminate long periods of exposure to low levels of such VOC’s resulting in healthier occupants with fewer respiratory insults. The low VOC components perform as well as the standard higher VOC building materials, and in many cases better. Care has been taken to insure each individual building component meets those standards.
Because of this, the structure has extremely low levels of chemicals in its air, which can irritate or even sicken the people in it-but there are chemicals or materials, which people will bring into or use in the building. The cleaning or disinfectant chemicals will meet strict standards to minimize occupant exposure to harmful compounds. Those locations in which such chemicals will be used (such as rooms where gluteraldehyde is used to sterilize medical instruments) will have special ventilation that exhausts them directly out of the building. This will prevent them from mixing with the building’s circulating air.
One of the common places for molds to grow is within the dust and fine particulates that settle within the HVAC ductwork system and adhere to the petrochemical which remain from the ductwork manufacturing process. To prevent SMB has used steel ductwork that is constructed using vegetable oils, which have been meticulously cleaned by hand prior to installation. In addition, in accordance with a strict LEED specifications that all ductwork must remain closed and sealed until after all construction activities , which create dust or particulates, are completed. They will remain sealed until then.
Should any such work be performed in the future the same isolation measures must be taken to protect the HVAC system. The HVAC system has not and will not be used to provide ventilation or drying during construction (as is commonly the practice) to avoid just such problems. This eliminates one more common cause for the “Sick Building Syndrome.” Further, the walls of the SMB have been filled with a special type of cellulose insulation, which will not support the growth of molds or insects, and as a bonus is also fireproof.
The HVA C system of the SMB is remarkable advanced and will provide the highest levels of clean, healthy air, and highly personalized thermal comfort. The Siskiyou Medical Building's HVAC system has been developed and installed by Total Energy Concepts of Vancouver, Washington and utilized their own unique approach. The amount of fresh air that is provided to each occupant’s space will meet or exceed the high standards of the latest ASHRAE specification (the national group of professional ventilation engineers.) The high volumes of “used” or previously circulated air will be exhausted out of the building after its heat content has been recovered. Most importantly, the air we breathe inside the building will pass through four separate treatment steps---as opposed to one step found in standard commercial buildings. The Siskiyou Medical Building’s air will be mechanically filtered as in standard buildings, but then it will be passed through an electrostatic filter. This will electrically charge and remove almost all particulate matter. The air will pass to the third step of treatment of electro-static air cleaner. This step carbonized organic compounds (such as those found in unpleasant or noxious odors) and removes these substances from the air stream. In the fourth and final step, the air is passed through a highly reflective chamber containing very high levels of Ultra-Violet C and Ultra-Violet V light. This kills airborne bacteria and viruses. Thus the air breathed by the building’s occupants will be cleaned of viruses and other airborne pathogens, will have had allergens destroyed and eliminated, and all particulates will have been removed down to a size of 0.3 microns! No one can insure that persons with viral illnesses or very strong perfumes will not enter the building, but we can insure that those elements will not be spread in the ventilation throughout the building. This is equally important for physicians, accountants, insurance, or offices of any other type.
Another unique feature of Siskiyou Medical Building’s HVAC system is that it uses a Geothermal system to heat and cool the air. This system uses no chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). This is healthier for both the occupants and the environment.
Thermal comfort is an important part of indoor air quality, occupant comfort, productivity, and well being. The negative effects of temperature can drastically reduce productivity, accelerating fatigue, altering physiology and even lead to illness. For these reasons, great attention has been devoted to thermal comfort in the Siskiyou Medical Building. Total Energy Concepts’ method of combining large amounts of fresh air with heat ventilation recovery and their own approach to ventilating every space provides an even temperature work space that virtually eliminates hot / cold spots. A comfortable temperature can actually be selected by those who are working in that space and not dictated by those in another area who may have an entirely different thermal environment---as is so often the case in commercial buildings.
The thermostats, which Total Energy Concepts incorporates in this system, actually sample the temperature at each locale several times per seconds! These thermostats in turn control the dampers which mix the air provided to that space to provide constant but responsive thermal control. Most of the heat that would normally be lost when the circulated air is exhausted to the exterior of the building is recovered with a system of Heat Recovery Ventilators. This allows a high volume of fresh air to be supplied without the cost of heating/cooling all of that fresh air with “new energy.” This means a more comfortable temperature for the occupants at reasonable costs. The result for those in the building is dependable thermal comfort AND fresh, clean air free of particulates, pathogens, odors and allergens.
The SMB is the only commercial building in the Rogue Valley that uses the temperature of the earth itself as the main source of energy to accomplish its heating and cooling. The SMB has 22 thousand linear feet of High Density Polypropylene pipe buried 5 feet beneath the entire parking lot. The system will constantly circulate a mixture of water and methanol through those pipes. This mixture will be converted to the ambient temperature of the soil at that depth, where the temperature is a constant 52-54 degrees F. Thus when it is hot and the building must be cooled, the water / methanol mixture carries the excess heat to the earth where it is released. The mixture is converted back to 54 degrees and returns to the building to carry away more heat. The opposite process occurs when it is cold and the building must be heated. The process utilizes water-to-air heat pumps, which are inherently more efficient that the standard air-to-air heat pumps, and are vastly more efficient than the standard “gas-packs” used for most commercial buildings. For example, in the summer when the temperature is 105 degrees, an air-to-air heat pump must accomplish a 35-degree temperature swing to cool the air to 70 degrees. It does this by expanding a refrigerant (usually a CFC) over and over again. By contrast the SMB geothermal starts with water that is already 54 degrees and only needs to accomplish a 16-degree temperature change that is actually toward the direction of the cooler circulating water rather than in the opposite direction from the hot air.
We have utilized a special insulation recommended and provided by Total Energy Concepts that is much more efficient than standard insulations, even other blown-in insulations. This recycled cellulose will not allow the growth of mold or bacteria, nor sustain insects. This material infiltrates every small space where applied – creating a more efficient barrier to air movement. It also will not burn. This material will not only make the building much more comfortable from a thermal standpoint, it provides a wonderfully quiet and calming atmosphere as well. Total Energy Concepts has provided thorough planning and execution for the HVAC system for every detail from the largest to the smallest.
There are many advantages to utilizing a Gross Lease. The most common lease used in our area is a “Triple Net Lease.” This type of lease is arranged so that the tenant pays the landlord a monthly fee for leasing the space. The tenant is also responsible for paying his electric bill, his water bill, his sewer & gutter bill, his gas bill, landscape maintenance fees, custodial as well as any other individual amenities they use (cable, linen, etc.). One fee that is often not discussed is the Common Area Maintenance (CAM) Fee. This is the fee a Triple Net Landlord assesses to cover the upkeep, maintenance and utilities of the common areas of the building, the exterior, paint, landscaping and custodial for the “common” portion of the building from which all tenants benefit, city fees, taxes, and other fees attributable to the “common areas” of the building. The Siskiyou Medical Building has been constructed to be a sustainable, efficient building that minimizes these costs. One great advantage a Gross Lease in the Siskiyou Medical Building is that the CAM costs are minimized which allows the elimination of the CAM Fee. Another huge advantage is the savings in employee time in eliminating the need for employees to track, record and pay each separate utility bill. Thee efficiencies of the building allow the many advanced features of the building to be offered at virtually the same costs of similar building space. The following comparison chart illustrates the relative costs of office space that is considered “Class A” but without the advanced features that provide a healthier, more productive environment. |
