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Most commercial buildings excavate an enormous amount of earth that is trucked to other sites or discarded. The King Street Center project created incentives for these materials to be re-used. Lease Crutcher Lewis, the general contractor for the building, reused 80 percent of excavation materials in constructing the building, a remarkable feat.
In a first for a commercial building in Seattle, the King Street Center collects rainwater to flush its 46 toilets throughout the year. The unique and innovative system is designed to collect rainwater from the building’s roof to fill each of three 5,400 gallon tanks. The water fills and passes through all three tanks, then is filtered in small cylinders, as it is pumped up to the toilets in the building in separate piping. If there is not enough rain to meet the building’s flushing needs, domestic water is automatically added to the tanks. In addition, much of the building’s landscaping needs are met through diversion of water from the reclamation system. Since rainwater is otherwise dumped into the city sewer system, King County is capturing water that would otherwise be wasted.
The building uses approximately 2.2 million gallons of flushing water per year. The new system saves an estimated 1.4 million gallons of water per year, meeting over 60 percent of the building’s estimated annual water needs.
The water reclamation system was designed by MacDonald-Miller Company, the design-build mechanical and plumbing contractor for the project. |
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