Tacoma city officials hope to break ground on the $40 million Urban Waters building in early 2009 and open doors in April, but that rides on the results of a competitive bidding process this fall.
The 50,000-square-foot building will sit on the east bank of the Thea Foss Waterway, housing research and office facilities for the University of Washington Tacoma, the city and Puget Sound Partnership, the state agency charged with cleaning up the Sound. It’s faced delays in the past year as designers struggled to match the city’s environmental goals to its budget.
“It’s a big project – huge,” Mayor Bill Baarsma said of the project at a recent meeting, “but well worth it.”
It’s worth it, City Council members say, in part because they hope it will establish Tacoma as the region’s environmental research hub.
But when bidding opens in November, if no contractor steps up to build Urban Waters for less than $40 million, the city will have to go back to the drawing board, possibly delaying the project by months, or consider increasing the budget, council members said.
The $40 million target has been hard to meet because the city is aiming for a prestigious platinum-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.
Platinum certification means the waterfront building, dedicated to studying the health of urban bodies of water, will be a temple to sustainability, featuring a green roof, recycled water for toilets, a natural heating and cooling system, and natural light to reduce dependence on electricity.
But those green features come at a cost. In March, estimates for planning, building and developing Urban Waters were as high as $745 per square foot. After “value engineering” and cutting nearly 8,000 square feet from the design, that figure has dropped closer to $689 per square foot, including permitting costs.
Jim Parvey, an engineer with the City of Tacoma, said the cost per square foot isn’t a figure that’s easy to compare to other office buildings. For starters, he said, the building contains several laboratories, which require more expensive ventilation. And the figures include the cost of planning and development, which is not always included in per-square foot costs of other structures.
In addition to downsizing during “value engineering,” designers swapped a steel frame for the concrete they’d planned to use, reduced the windows on one side, and deleted an atrium with a skylight from the plan.
City Council member Jake Fey said he expects the bids to come in under budget. If not, Fey, who was initially concerned with the building’s cost, said he’d consider spending a little more, if necessary.
“If you’re doing a building, you’ve got to do it right,” Fey said.
The level of environmental friendliness is worth it, said Connie Ladenburg, a City Council member and a member of the board of Urban Waters.
“We’re making a statement,” she said, adding that a building devoted to studying water quality is the ideal means of showcasing environmentally responsible practices.
Both Ladenburg and Fey said they’re also looking forward to Urban Waters helping to establish Tacoma as a center for environmental studies.
Ladenburg said the Urban Waters project has generated so much “energy and synergy” among local and state government, as well as educational and business interests, that the board is “already looking long-term at how this really can grow into an environmental research center.”
Niki Sullivan: 253-597-8603
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