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PROJECT TEAM + STATS:

Project Location: Keizer, Oregon

Project Cost: $15.1 million

Start Date: November 2006

Completion Date: June 2009

Owner/Developer: City of Keizer

Architect/Engineer: Group Mackenzie

General Contractor: Emerick Construction

Keizer officials and staff knew the city needed a new civic complex, but it took an extensive community-involvement process to convince many residents of the need for the project.

“Public facilities projects are always challenging because the public is consistently skeptical of the need to invest public funds on large BUILDINGS for public employees,” said City Manager Chris Eppley. “Our process of studying the need for the new building and designing what would end up being built took three separate citizen task forces and eight years of debate.”

Ultimately, citizens supported the new facility, which consolidates city departments, municipal court, council chambers and the police department. The project also included a new park on a 10-acre site. It features a skate park, maintenance facility and the Heritage Center Museum, an historic building that houses the public library and community meeting space.

Designers sited the building on the northwest corner and oriented the main entrance to the street to create a strong civic presence and connection to the community. A secondary entrance faces the park, and parking is located on the opposite side. Because the site abuts a residential neighborhood and is located just down the street from the fire station and commercial district, designers capitalized on these adjacencies by adding an electric vehicle charging station.

The exterior design was heavily influenced by the site constraints and character of the surrounding neighborhood. The building program and scale of the neighboring BUILDINGS drove the decision to design the facility as a single-story structure. The exterior shell is made mostly of concrete masonry, high albedo metal roofing and built-up roofing accented by FSC-certified glulam timbers.

“We blended modern/industrial with Northwest-lodge style to build a place that has significantly more personality than a typical public institutional building, but which is still a relatively straightforward and cost-effective design,” Eppley said.

Designed for LEED silver certification, the building met or exceeded LEED requirements for efficiencies in uses of water, energy, materials and operations. Finishes and furniture utilize local materials with recycled components and contain no volatile organic compounds. The project achieved 33 percent recycled content materials and 80 percent FSC-certified wood products.

The requirements for office space resulted in an increase of 49 percent of open space above code requirements. Throughout the landscaped area, including in the stormwater swales, native or adapted plants were selected to complement the exterior green design by minimizing lawn areas, providing shade, reducing the need for fertilizers and conserving water.

The project team, led by Portland’s Emerick Construction, instituted a stringent recycling and waste management program that succeeded in diverting 98 percent of construction waste from landfills. And enhanced commissioning will promote further energy efficiencies by ensuring that the installed systems perform as designed.

Among the challenges during the project, the site was extremely constrained and required careful demolition and construction phasing. Through the process of phased construction, existing police facilities were dismantled and the new facility was built without disruption to critical public services.