As the structural manifestation of a city that aspires to be the
“greenest” in the country, Seattle’s City Hall is replete with
“eco-conscious” features. Heavy glazing and sunscreens keep out hot
afternoon sun, and glass “sun catchers” reflect early-morning and
evening light into offices, reducing the need for artificial light. The
toilets use recycled rain-
water from the green roof, which also
reduces runoff and helps insulate the building. City Hall’s green
features were enough to earn it a coveted Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) Gold designation—a fact attested to
by a prominent plaque on the front face of the building.
But ever since City Hall opened in 2005, problems with the “green”
features have kept cropping up. From air conditioners that freeze some
offices while leaving others broiling (at least one City Hall staffer
is known to keep an energy-sucking space heater under his desk), to the
emergence of invasive weeds on the green roof, City Hall’s
eco-experiment has been only a qualified success. The latest
revelation: Rooftop solar panels that helped the building win its LEED
certification were never hooked up—in fact, they were never even
purchased. Instead, the building was wired for eventual installment of
the panels, but when city council member Tom Rasmussen asked several
years ago whether they could be installed yet, he says council staff
told him the panels would be “too expensive”—around $250,000, a
major hit in a time of constricted budgets.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Fleets and Facilities Department,
Katherine Schubert-Knapp, says the solar panels were only ever intended
as a “demonstration project” that would only produce enough power “to
run a clock.” But Sergei Bischak, an architect with City Hall designer
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, says there are “wiring pathways” to install a
number of photovoltaic cells, and adds that the decision to eliminate
the panels was “the result of budget cuts.” The firm’s website still
cites solar panels among the building’s green features.
Rasmussen says there are “a lot of problems with City Hall that
could have been anticipated.” In addition to the appearance of invasive
species such as Scotch broom and blackberries on the
roof—interlopers that are not only unsightly but that could clog
the building’s filtration system, allowing mold and mildew to
grow—Rasmussen cites the waterless urinals, which continued to
produce an oft-cited “splash effect” even after their heights were
adjusted. (A memo announcing the fix went to all the male council
members and staff last year.) City Hall has just one small bank of
publicly accessible bike racks; the largest set of bike racks is inside
a parking garage mostly used by city staff. And the
(electric-pump-powered) “water feature,” an attractive fountain that
cascades down limestone steps and into a reflecting pool on Fourth
Avenue, has been plagued by problems.
The problems aren’t exclusive to the “green” features, of course.
Rather, they seem to be part of a pattern of problems with the
construction and design—a pattern Seattle Times reporter
Jim Brunner documented back in 2005. Among the non-“green”-related
issues: thermostats that are placed, perversely, in every other council
office, allowing council members and staff with climate-control
privileges to lord it over (or at least inadvertently freeze or broil)
people in offices without access to a thermostat; and toilets that
flush with “an incredible power,” according to Rasmussen, who says, “I
flush the toilet and run.” At a time when the mayor’s office is sending
out press releases touting Seattle as the “number one green building
city in the country,” it would be nice if our showcase green building
actually functioned as planned. 