Photographs by David Kreutz
Partnering with architects at Mackey Mitchell Associates, Alberici created a dramatic—almost futuristic—corporate campus on the grounds of a deserted industrial site
From the time J.S. Alberici opened a construction firm out of his home in 1918, he had a simple and direct vision about how to conduct business. Alberici Constructors Inc. has embraced his values ever since, meeting challenges with determination but tempering ambition with integrity.
For years, Alberici stayed close to its roots, planted firmly on Kienlen Avenue, close to the St. Louis city limits. Then Alberici ran out of space. Expanding the Kienlen buildings, constructed in 1968 and 1981, didn’t make sense for a variety of reasons. Most compelling, perhaps, was that closed-off feeling—offices spread vertically on different floors kept employees isolated from one another.
“The Kienlen space kept us warm in the winter and cool in the summer but wasn’t about fostering teamwork and creativity,” says Bob McCoole, president and CEO. In collaboration with the chairman of the board, John Alberici, McCoole decided to explore the idea of moving company headquarters. After looking at about 40 properties that wouldn’t work, they found one that would—a 13.5-acre brownfield site (property abandoned or underused because of possible hazardous contamination) at Interstate 170 and Page Avenue.
The huge metal warehouse on the site was the polar opposite of fancy. But architect Gene Mackey, principal at Mackey Mitchell Associates, helped in the search, and he saw striking potential in the big, boxy building with the bold steel trusses. One day over lunch, he said to McCoole, “Let’s approach this first by not tearing it down.” Grabbing a napkin, Mackey sketched rapidly, chopping off pieces of the building with his pen.
The Alberici crew concurred. “This was a space and an area that fit us,” says McCoole. “It’s only a few miles from our old location, which the company still uses for certain kinds of services. And we’re not in the middle of banks and law firms here. That wouldn’t be our style.”
That visionary approach was the spark that made the construction and design team start thinking at a higher level. And the comment about not tearing it down reminded McCoole of a Ford Motor Company convention he had attended several years before, discussing sustainability and describing how Ford had successfully integrated green building concepts into a project in Dearborn, Mich.
The dots connected. Alberici decided to participate in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the U.S. Green Building Council’s voluntary measurement and certification system. LEED rates high-performance, sustainable buildings on everything from water savings to indoor environmental quality. But because building in this way is a creative challenge, LEED rates sustainability at several levels, from basic certification to silver, gold, even platinum.
John Alberici didn’t hesitate. “Let’s go for platinum,” he said.
Even suppliers climbed on the green bandwagon, helping Alberici earn LEED points for bringing in products manufactured within 500 miles in order to avoid hidden energy-related costs of long-distance shipping. Crew members came up with an on-site debris-recycling program. And they cheated the landfill by reusing, donating or recycling most of the used building materials.
“Many workers commented how nice it was to go home after a day of not breathing toxins and contaminated products—that they felt better physically and mentally,” says McCoole. “We had a union tradesman who removed lead paint from the existing steel columns. We would see him every day, looking like something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, being fed air through a tube, in his helmet and heavy work garments. One day he stopped me and said, ‘I want to show you something.’ He pointed to a mountain of brown paper bags that had formerly been filled with sand. Normally, you would see these bags strewn all over the site or blown against fences across the highway. He’d decided they should be recycled.”
Not only is the new building gentle on the earth but it’s full of details devoted to the care and comfort of Alberici employees. The building management system senses when the outside temperature and humidity are right for the windows to open, letting in fresh air and daylight. And everyone has a view of the outdoors.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in building materials such as carpeting and paint are kept to a minimum. Acoustic improvements and fabric-screen additions to workspace partitions filter noise and movement for employees, who might otherwise be thrown off kilter by so much openness. Air service below raised flooring allows employees to adjust airflow. A gleaming cafeteria with a full kitchen and a gym full of gorgeous equipment tell the rest of the story.
In December, Alberici employees moved into their 112,000-square-foot, bi-level building, surrounded by a courtyard, ponds, walking paths, a patio and a covered two-story parking garage. Inside, departments are clustered based on who benefits from close proximity. A “Main Street” runs the entire length of the building, with very little closed-off space. “Everybody sees everybody else,” says McCoole, “so people interact more. We have a springboard to continue to be innovative.”
Indeed, the very structure of the building is innovative, with light-reflective roof coverings coated with a natural soybean oil polymer to reduce heat buildup. “Gray water” collected on site is used in place of fresh water to flush toilets.
A wind turbine will reduce dependence on a power grid. Precipitation becomes embedded in natural landscape materials and feeds ponds on the site.
Rapidly renewable materials such as cork flooring and plyboo (a mix of plywood and bamboo) paneling give a boost to the environment and earn LEED points inside the building.
“No one’s volunteering to go back to Kienlen. People love the space,” McCoole says. “And my guess is that our project stands an excellent chance of becoming one of the top 12 platinum projects in the country.”
