Sustainability is at the heart of new Mount Vernon Library Commons Project

Thanks to the Seat­tle Daily Jour­nal of Com­merce for pub­lish­ing a story on the Mount Ver­non Li­brary Com­mons and its sus­tain­abil­ity goals. The en­tire team is work­ing to push the en­ve­lope, lit­er­ally and fig­u­ra­tively, to re­duce our en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pacts.

Ren­der­ings by HKP Ar­chi­tects

The project aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 30-40% compared to standard construction.

The building is located one block from the Skagit Station with access to bus and train service.

A new pub­lic li­brary, com­mu­nity cen­ter and park­ing garage pro­ject in Mount Ver­non aims to be the first pas­sive house li­brary build­ing in the re­gion and the largest elec­tric ve­hi­cle charg­ing sta­tion on I-5. The 130,000 square foot pro­ject is de­signed by HKP Ar­chi­tects, which is cur­rently fi­nal­iz­ing the de­sign. Bids for the pro­ject are sched­uled to be opened this sum­mer.

On the ground level, the build­ing will house a new 20,000 square foot Mount Ver­non Pub­lic Li­brary, a 10,000 square foot Com­mons, with a multi-pur­pose and di­vis­i­ble com­mu­nity room and flex room, a con­fer­ence room, and a com­mer­cial kitchen. Three floors of el­e­vated park­ing will serve the build­ing with 76 EV charg­ing sta­tions planned. To­tal ve­hi­cle ca­pac­ity will be 200. Bike lock­ers with charg­ing sta­tions will also be pro­vided.

The pro­ject is aim­ing for PHIUS cer­ti­fi­ca­tion which will make it the first Pas­sive House pub­lic li­brary and com­mu­nity cen­ter in the re­gion. Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease, “the fa­cil­ity has a high-per­for­mance en­ve­lope which will re­sult in very low an­nual en­ergy use, pro­vide ex­cep­tional ther­mal com­fort, en­hanced acousti­cal per­for­mance and in­door air qual­ity, and re­duce the pro­jec­t’s over­all im­pacts to cli­mate change.”

The build­ing will also be all-elec­tric with a 114,000 kW rooftop so­lar ar­ray that will pro­vide ap­prox­i­mately 18% of the build­ing load. HKP Ar­chi­tects worked with the In­te­grated De­sign Lab to op­ti­mize day­light­ing and the an­gle and spac­ing of the so­lar pan­els.

“This fa­cil­ity rep­re­sents the fu­ture of Mount Ver­non and it’s pro­gres­sive stance to­wards sus­tain­abil­ity,” said HKP part­ner, Julie Blazek, in the press re­lease. De­sign is slated to be com­plete in May of this year, with bid­ding in June. Con­struc­tion is to be­gin in July or Au­gust. Fund­ing is com­ing from mul­ti­ple grants – in­clud­ing fed­eral In­fra­struc­ture In­vest­ment and Jobs Act dol­lars – fi­nanc­ing, and fundrais­ing. To­tal pro­ject cost is $46.3 mil­lion.

Team mem­bers in­clude KPFF (civil and struc­tural), Swift Com­pany (land­scape), FSi (me­chan­i­cal), TFWB (elec­tri­cal), Dark Light De­sign (Light­ing), The Green­busch Group (Acousti­cal, Au­dio-Video, Ver­ti­cal Trans­port), Cle­venger As­so­ci­ates (kitchen), DCW (cost man­age­ment), Kriegh Ar­chi­tec­ture Stu­dio (sus­tain­abil­ity, with WSP pro­vid­ing WBLCA and WUFI-Pas­sive mod­el­ing), Stu­diopaci­fica (ac­ces­si­bil­ity), In­te­grated De­sign Lab (day­light­ing), Brand­Query (Wayfind­ing and Sig­nage), Geo­Engi­neers (ge­ot­ech­ni­cal), Pa­cific Sur­vey and En­gi­neer­ing (sur­vey), BHC (Code Con­sult­ing), and Balder­ston & As­so­ci­ates (PHIUS Rater).