Owner
Interior Construction Group, Inc.

Architect
Gary Lee Partners

210 S. Clark

ICG, a general contractor specializing in commercial interiors, is relocating their offices to the 13th floor of 210 S. Clark. This relatively small project (8,000 sf) is seeking LEED®-CI Gold certification and presents some unusual opportunities because it is actually in the same building as the company’s current offices. It’s a great demonstration that you don’t have to be a huge company (like Exelon) or always go all-out (like Exelon) in order to think green on something as seemingly routine as a commercial office. Our construction photo shows an often-overlooked indoor air quality construction process detail - protection of open ends of ductwork being installed.

Staying in the same building, with a similar program, allowed ICG to reuse many pieces of their old office, including wood millwork secretarial stations, plastic laminate millwork in the copy rooms, interior doors and frames, glass wall partitions, accent art lighting and furniture. New materials selected for green attributes include Greenguard certified carpet, recycled glass terrazzo flooring, cork and bamboo flooring, and recycled glass countertops and backsplashes. As on most interiors, lighting is dimmed in response to available daylight, and new appliances are Energy Star rated.

Often pushing the contractor to buy into the green goals of a project is seen as the last major hurdle. The design team on this project benefited from the very rare condition where the contractor (ICG) is also the owner and client! Having a contractor on board early can be a great benefit to integrated green design, especially to provide realistic pricing of design alternatives and help source unusual products. Too bad not all projects can benefit from DIY owners. ICG is scheduled to move into their new offices at the beginning of October; the MEP engineer for the project was Building Engineering Systems.