Brief Description

Friends Center is a campus of 3 buildings in Center City Philadelphia owned and occupied by 3 Quaker organizations: the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), and the Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. It is located at 15th and Cherry Street. The site listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also designated a Philadelphia historic site. The project includes the renovation of 2 of the 3 buildings: the historic Race Street Meeting House and a 4 story office structure containing the offices of AFSC and PYM.

Currently the Friends have embarked on a major renovation of Friends Center and the restoration of the historic Race Street Meeting house, built in 1856, that stands at the center of the campus. Long committed to environmental stewardship and the "right sharing" of resources, the Friends concluded that they would invest in green technologies that yield long-term energy savings and construct a project that will be a model of sustainable design. With design development now completed, they will seek LEED certification at the gold level and have committed themselves to raising the additional funds needed.

A most important green design decision that the Friends have already made is to preserve their existing buildings in the heart of Philadelphia's central business district instead of selling their property for the development of new high-rise office buildings. Their highly visible campus in center city will continue to be the beacon of social justice and environmental stewardship that it has been for 150 years.

Project Team:

Planning and Design Process With funding from the Kresge Foundation Friends Center Corporation entered into a planning process that included green building tours; goal setting; a 2-day green design charette; energy modeling; daylight modeling; and post-charette follow-up. Utilizing the energy model constructed for the office building, the design team tested the savings of 12 energy efficiency measures, both individually and in various combinations. Now complete, this analysis shows that the optimal combination of measures will save the Friends in excess of $150,000 in the first year of operation.

1. Become fossil fuel free and carbon neutral

• Conserve by reducing energy demand through improved thermal envelope, day-lighting, efficient lighting systems, reduced plug loads, and energy efficient equipment.
• 100% purchased wind generated electricity
• Photovoltaic local power generation
• Geothermal energy for heating and cooling

2. Cease to contribute to the degradation of Philadelphia's watershed

• Detain storm water on-site in a vegetative roof, tree trenches, a rain garden and underground cisterns with combined capacity to store storm water from a rainfall of 1-3/4" in 24 hours
• Reduce consumption of potable water by treating waste water on-site in constructed wet-lands and Eco-machine and recycling it for use in flushing toilets and irrigation.

Other project objectives also included up-grading the building envelops, using sustainable materials and resources and improving indoor environmental quality. In the office building the design removes most existing full height partitions and creates large, new open-office work areas where occupants will have access to daylight and unobstructed views. Interior private offices and conference rooms will have access to daylight through glass partitions and doors. Exterior windows will be replaced with high performance glass to maximize the harvesting of daylight.

Implementation The first phase of construction, including the re-roofing of the office building and the installation of the PV panel array and vegetative roof will be complete by the end of March, 2007. The drilling of the geothermal wells is anticipated in April, 2007. In May Friends Center expects to award a general construction contract for balance of the project with completion scheduled for the fall of 2008.

Why does this project deserve to win a Philadelphia Sustainability Award?

1. With the completion of the first phase of construction this spring it will become a highly visible model for the green renovation of existing buildings in Center City as well as other high density urban areas.

2. Friends Center is continuing its campaign to raise the additional funds needed to implement the full program of sustainable design components now included in the project plans. Recognition in this awards program will give valuable impetus to this campaign and assist the Owner in completing the project as designed.