Hiawatha Maintenance Facility
Address: 1901 East 26th Street
Cost: $11 million
Completed: 2010
This award-winning facility was constructed on a site that used to house a complex of 18 Public Works buildings, some dating back to the turn of the 20th century. The main building, which originally served as an infirmary for sick horses for the Fire Department and the City Engineer’s Office, was stripped down to its brick-and-mortar shell and renovated as office space.
Some money-saving and efficiency features of the facility include:
- More than 90 percent of the material from the demolition of previous buildings was recycled and used in construction of the new facility. This includes 100 percent of the demolition rubble (concrete, brick and asphalt).
- The new building’s footprint is 43 percent smaller than the total footprints of the previous buildings.
- Around 90 percent of the space inside the facility is lit by daylight, reducing the amount of electricity needed during the day. The entire facility is 60 percent more efficient than a building built merely to code.
- Rain gardens, pervious pavers, bio-swales (low-lying areas to slow runoff and let water soak into the ground) and an underground water infiltration basin keep rainwater on the property. As a result, the landscape requires no watering, and virtually no stormwater runs off into the storm sewers. The site has prairie-type landscaping and trees that tolerate salt, such as birch and dogwood.
- The building’s heating and cooling uses geothermal energy, in-floor heating and cooling for shops, and strategies to recover and use heating and cooling that would otherwise be lost. The geothermal system is energy-efficient and will pay for itself in four years.
- The fence surrounding the building and public art was made from steel deck sections from the old Lowry Avenue Bridge. Hennepin County donated the deck for the project.
Last updated Feb. 17, 2012