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Testa Produce
Chicago, Illinois
Epstein is providing full-service architecture and engineering services for a 158,500 square foot headquarters/produce distribution facility for Testa Produce, Inc. located in the old Union Stockyards complex in Chicago, Illinois. The 11-acre project includes 27,000 square feet of Class A office space and a distribution center containing a 10,000 square foot 0 degree freezer, 48,000 square feet of cooler space, approximately 6,600 square feet of dry warehouse and approximately 61 truck dock positions on two refrigerated cross docks. Upon completion this facility which is pursuing LEED-NC Platinum certification, will be one of the most sustainable industrial facilities of its kind in the United States.
Green features of the new building include two large wind turbines, 167 feet tall, that will each provide 380,000 kilowatt hours annually to the facility, ground-sourced heating and cooling and a variety of solar and water conservation features.
The ground-sourced heat pump or geo-exchange system features between 60 and 100 holes which are bored 325 feet into the ground, these holes maintain a steady temperature at the depth of 50 to 55 degrees. Using the air to heat and/or cool the building from these bore holes requires significantly less heating and cooling than air taken directly from the outside of the building.
A vegetated green roof will cover 55 percent of the entire roof area, which will not only provide insulation and prevent stormwater runoff, but will be formed and sculpted to give the building a unique green identity. The green roof becomes a graduate slope that spills over the edge to become a green wall.
Other features to minimize and recycle stormwater runoff from the roof and paved areas are permeable pavers as well as “bio-swales,” or live wetlands that will also capture and cleanse stormwater runoff. The facility will put no runoff into the city’s sewer system, and stormwater will be used for irrigation of the vegetation and indoor plumbing.
Employees will have a green experience both outside and inside the building. Workers will actually enter the facility by crossing a bridge over the bio-swales and entering through one of the green walls.
Solar energy will be utilized in two distinct ways. Solar collectors will provide heated water that will provide the energy to actually help refrigerate the facility. In addition, not only will skylights be used to provide natural ambient lighting, which has been shown to improve worker morale and productivity, but a solar tracking system will adjust the ambient lighting based on the sun’s position in the sky at a given time.
Finally, all of the facility’s trucks are being converted to bio-diesel fuel, which contributes to reduced air-pollutants.
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