Green homes for government

Late last year, San Bernardino County, Calif., moved several of its offices into the new partially solar-powered High Desert Government Center and Hesperia Police Department Headquarters. The LEED Gold-certified facilities complete the 27-acre Hesperia Civic Center complex, which also includes city hall, a library and five-acre Civic Center Park.

The 66,800-square-foot High Desert Government Center houses multiple county departments, including Agriculture, Assessor, Recorder, Land Use, Fire, Human Resources, Environmental Services, Public Works, Registrar of Voters and Veterans Affairs. It has a $2.8 million, 286-kilowatt solar energy system that is expected to reduce electricity consumption for the building by 70 percent, saving approximately $60,000 annually. It was funded with grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the California Solar Initiative.

The 45,700-square-foot Hesperia Police Department Headquarters includes patrol areas, briefing areas, evidence storage, investigations services, office management and records, and a community room that will be used as an Emergency Operations Center. It has an integrated grid-tied Solar Electric System on both the carport structure arrays and roof-mounted arrays, which is expected to offset nearly 71 percent of the building's expected annual energy use.

Designed by Irvine, Calif.-based LPA and built by St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies, both buildings were constructed using tilt-up concrete. Laguna Beach, Calif.-based Griffin Structures provided program and construction management services to the entire Civic Center project, which totals 182,500 square feet of buildings with an overall cost of $71.7 million.