A great deal was written about the building at the time of its opening, and again when it got the Living Building nod. Now that the Bullitt Center has been in operation for several years, the time has come to review the performance data, hear from its designers and occupants, and document for wide consumption the lessons learned along the way.
The Vision
Much of the Bullitt Center’s success can be attributed to its design, led by local architecture firm the Miller Hull Partnership and Portland, Ore.–based M/E/P firm PAE Consulting Engineers. But it also hinges on its occupants, perhaps the most well-known of whom is Bullitt Foundation president and CEO Denis Hayes.
It may come as no surprise that Hayes, 72, was the principal organizer of the first Earth Day, held in 1970. Later, he was appointed director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Research Institute, now known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In 1992, Hayes returned to the private sector and joined the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental philanthropy that focuses on the Pacific Northwest.
For 21 years, the foundation was located in a renovated (but energy inefficient) carriage house at Seattle’s Stimson-Green Mansion, a National Register of Historic Places landmark dating to 1901. In 2007, when the nonprofit organization needed more space, Hayes proposed constructing a “deep green” office building that would better align with its mission. Renting space in a local LEED Silver office building would have been the sensible thing for the six-person staff to do. “But Denis isn’t really a LEED Silver kind of guy,” says Bullitt Center spokesman Brad Kahn.
Hayes envisioned a leasable building that would set a new bar for sustainable development and establish the business case for going green. “If you can do it in Seattle,” he often says, “you can do it anywhere.”
Energy Consumption
In a neighborhood dominated by three- and four-story brick apartment buildings, the Bullitt Center is impossible to miss, with its overhanging roof of 575 photovoltaic panels—a 14,000-square-foot home plate, capable of generating 244 kilowatts, perched atop the five-sided, 52,000-square-foot building.
The average energy use intensity (EUI) of a code-compliant commercial building in Seattle is 60 kBtu per square foot per year. For projects built to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum standard, it’s 32. In order for that roof of solar panels to suffice as the sole energy supply, the Bullitt Center’s EUI could not exceed 16.
In actuality, the building’s EUI has been closer to 10. Despite being located in one of America’s cloudiest states, the Bullitt Center has generated 60 percent more energy than it has used, thanks to its design and its energy-savvy tenants. In 2015, the building even sold nearly 90,000 kilowatt-hours of excess energy back to local utility company Seattle City Light.
Turns out solar energy in the Emerald City isn’t such a crazy idea after all.