May 18, 2015

Sonos lease fills up Bullitt Center

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The wireless speaker company Sonos (www.sonos.com) is opening an engineering office in the Bullitt Center, filling the last available space in the 50,000-square-foot “living building” on Capitol Hill.

Santa Barbara-based Sonos is taking about 14,000 square feet, which is about a floor and a half, said Brad Kahn, communications director for Bullitt Center.

Some Sonos employees have already started moving in. Initially, Sonos will occupy the fourth floor of the six-story building. Within the next year it will take half of the sixth floor. Sonos is starting with about 10 employees, but the space could accommodate about 70 people.

Like all tenants in the Bullitt Center, Sonos will have to commit to the building's net-zero requirements for water and energy use. Kahn said Bullitt Center has a collective budget for water and energy use, and each tenant gets a portion based on the size of their space.

In 2014, Bullitt Center produced about 60 percent more energy than it used, Kahn said. The building is modeled to use about 500 gallons of water per day, and right now it uses about 250.

Kahn said other high tech companies in the building haven't had trouble meeting the energy and water benchmarks. Most of their employees work on laptops rather than large desktops that use more energy. Advances in cloud computing mean the building uses much less space and energy for servers.

Kahn said cloud computing means a lot of energy use is “exported,” but shared computer energy still is superior to firms having their own servers.

The Bullitt Foundation opened the $32.5 million building in early 2013, and bills it as the world's greenest commercial building. It earned Living Building certification this year from the International Living Future Institute.

Point32 was the developer and owner's representative, and PAE was the mechanical and electrical engineer.

Other team members were: The Miller Hull Partnership, architect; Schuchart, general contractor; DCI Engineers, structural engineer; Springline Design, civil engineer; and Berger Partnership, landscape architect.

Projects in 12 countries are registered in the Living Building Challenge and six have been certified, including McGilvra Place Park, which sits next to Bullitt Center.

To earn living building certification, Bullitt Center had to demonstrate a full year of net-zero energy and water use. All building materials were screened for toxic chemicals and all the wood was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Toilet waste is composted and rainwater is captured for all uses, even drinking.

The International Living Future Institute, Bullitt Foundation and two of the project team members — Point32 and PAE — are tenants in the building. Other tenants are Hammer & Hand, Intentional Futures and University of Washington's Integrated Design Lab.