Seattle's new City Hall is an energy hog

But the building acts like an old-fashioned electricity hog. It has lofty public spaces and walls of glass designed to welcome citizens and suggest an open and transparent government. It also uses 15 percent to 50 percent more electricity some months than the older, larger building it replaced, according to Seattle City Light utility bills.

The high energy use is an embarrassment for the city at a time when Mayor Greg Nickels is urging municipalities across the country to cut their energy consumption and voluntarily comply with the Kyoto environmental protocols.

City Council members last week reacted to the energy consumption news with shock, then shook their heads in disbelief.

"I am very surprised," said Councilwoman Jean Godden, chairwoman of the council's energy and environmental policy committee.

"You know, Seattle City Light has a crew that will come out and tell you how to conserve. I think we better have them over here."

Godden immediately started looking around her office for culprits.

"Did each council office come with a cute little refrigerator in the old building?" she asked, pointing to the fridge in her closet. "In the old building, the elevators were so slow everyone took the stairs. Maybe that has something to do with it."

According to City Light figures, the new building uses 7,045 kilowatt-hours of energy on average per day, compared with 5,940 kilowatt-hours per day in the old place.

Without the energy-saving devices, it would use 8,645 kilowatt-hours per day, according to City Light calculations. A kilowatt-hour is equal to 1,000 watts of electrical energy being used for an hour.

The new, $72 million City Hall, which opened at 600 Fourth Ave. two years ago, is considerably smaller than the 1960s-era building it replaced. It also houses far fewer employees.

Word that the utility bills are $3,000 to $5,000 higher per month than in the old building, and energy use is higher, caught council members off guard.

"Really? If this is true, then there is something wrong," Councilman Richard Conlin said. "Maybe it's operational. It was definitely supposed to meet higher standards. Maybe the old building was more efficient than we thought."

One City Council staff member, remembering the narrow halls, low ceilings and crowded offices of the old City Hall, said, "Maybe the body heat from all those people so close together kept the heating bills down."

Marianne Bichsel, a spokeswoman for Nickels, noted that plans for the new City Hall began during the administration of former Mayor Paul Schell.

"It was designed to be a building that is much more inviting to the public ... beyond what the old municipal building ever was," she said. "This is an energy-efficient building."

The new City Hall is designed to meet requirements for silver certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The documentation for certification was just sent last month to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Certification considers all aspects of a building's design, such as the materials used, water and energy efficiency, natural light, views, landscaping and how a building is oriented on the site.

"Energy efficiency is a big part of LEED," said Gwyn Jones, a spokeswoman for the Green Building Council.

But the certification process doesn't audit actual performance of the building or how much energy it really uses.

To its advantage, it appears that the building uses much less water and less trash is hauled away each week than at the old building.

In its quest for certification, City Hall may face other challenges, with its limestone imported from France and the soaring titanium wall that shrouds the council chamber. The unusual materials are meant to help the building last 100 years. The titanium is intended to suggest the metal used by The Boeing Co. to build its early airplanes.

But there are some questions about environmental effects of its mining, and energy costs involved in transporting it to Seattle.

"We go by what architects certify in their documents," Jones said. "We don't go out and inspect. It has titanium, really?"

The building's many quirks have been noted since the first City Council meeting in the new chambers, when members took their seats behind the council dais and their heads barely poked over the top of the table.

On Friday, City Light managers seemed confident that their charts showed the new building used significantly less energy than its now-demolished counterpart. But utility managers had used the wrong address for the old building in the chart, substituting the big, 24-hour Public Safety Building that used to be across the street by mistake.

When the correct numbers were checked later, it was clear that the new building consistently uses more electricity. Some months the difference is slight; other months it is more dramatic.

"It surprises me that City Hall would use more electricity than the Municipal Building," said Monica Lake, a strategic adviser in the city's Fleets and Facilities Department. She was the city's in-house project manager for the construction.

"I do feel confident in representing that City Hall is an efficient building," she said.

Lake said she is at a loss to guess why the building would use more electricity than its predecessor, especially because the air-cooling and heating systems primarily use natural gas, not electricity.

She guessed that maybe light fixtures high above the floor, while energy-efficient, require more electricity to cast their light that far below.

It was just a guess.

She also wondered about the individual refrigerators in council offices, the many more televisions in the building and possibly more computers.

There are many other variables to take into consideration, say City Light officials, such as weather patterns from year to year and construction that was still continuing on the new building after it opened.

City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco said it might make more sense to look at the issue from a different perspective. If the building didn't have all the energy-saving features and investments, it would be using even more electricity every day. The devices reduce consumption in the building on the average of 19 percent, he said.

"That comparison corrects for all other things," he said.

Godden said she will take action.

"I'm serious. I think we should have a checkup," she said. "We ask others to conserve, I think we should, too.

"But I do think it is a beautiful building."

P-I reporter Kathy Mulady can be reached at 206-448-8029 or kathymulady@seattlepi.com.

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