Architects of the new building at N.W. 6th Avenue and Hoyt Street across the street from Union Station made their remarks at an open house at the Bud Clark Commons on June 18.
Along with office space and specialized health clinics, the six-story, $46 million building will function as an emergency command center for any public health issues that may arise.
The new headquarters is designed to be an “80-year-building,” said Jonah Gamblin, a ZGF designer who unveiled the architectural design to a group of county employees and neighbors. The physical structure will last much longer, but nearly a century from now, the thinking goes, much of our public health knowledge and infrastructure may be obsolete.
“What was public health like in 1930? Well it’s very different today. And 80 years hence, it’s going to be something completely different as well,” Gamblin said.
Mike Andrews from Home Forward, the developer of the project, agrees that flexibility is key.
“The neighborhood is changing a lot,” Andrews said at the open house, “and over the next ten years, it’s likely to change a lot more.”
Sustainability was another key factor when deciding what the space will look like. Along with being LEED-certified, the building is scheduled to meet the Architecture 2030 Challenge, a set of sustainability targets that encourage new developments to become carbon-neutral by the year 2030.
In other words, the new Health Department building will eventually operate without fossil fuels by buying renewable energy, generating its own renewable power and using innovative design strategies like geothermal heat exchange, stormwater filtration and eco-roofing.
The next big step in the process is a design review hearing where a panel of architects will judge whether or not the new development meets the specific building standards in the neighborhood.
Construction by JE Dunn is slated to start in the first quarter of 2015 and end 18 months later. Doors for the new Health Department headquarters are expected to open to about 300 employees and the public in the fall of 2016.