SUNY-ESF’s Gateway Center opened Friday, which will help generate a significant amount of the campus’ electricity.

Opening after three years of construction, the center was built to improve the look of the entrance to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry campus. The building is designed to be energy-efficient and to supply power for other buildings on the ESF campus. The building also has a roof garden, said Michael Kelleher, the executive director of energy and sustainability.

Construction to the building started in 2010. The project cost about $28 million in total, but was supported by a $1 million grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Kelleher said.

“The Gateway Center was designed to welcome people to the ESF campus, provide a gathering space for students and to improve the overall sustainability of the college,” said Susan Fassler, a graduate student in ESF who worked with Kelleher on the project.

When students previously entered the ESF campus from the west side, all they would see were the backs of buildings, Kelleher said. The Gateway building will now help mark the entrance to campus.

He added the Gateway Center is built to use less energy than a typical building.

A combined heat-and-power system in the basement helps power Gateway Center and four other buildings on the ESF campus for roughly eight to nine months out of the year, he said. This amounts to the building generating 20 percent of the electricity on ESF’s campus and 65 percent of the heat for the entire ESF campus, Kelleher said.

The center also contains the ESF Bookstore and Trailhead Café, a new hotspot for students to socialize and enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On the building’s west side, specially-made glass windows are placed to block out heat while letting in the sunlight, he said.

The Café’s lights will dim in response to the amount of sunlight sensed in the area, Kelleher said.

A garden on the building’s roof contains native plants from Lake Ontario and is both educational and functional, he said.  When it rains, the garden’s plants are supposed to help retain the water with their roots, rather than letting it run off the roof, he said.

He said the garden is also supposed to provide extra insulation for the Gateway Center.

Timothy Toland, an associate professor of landscape architecture, and Don Leopold, chair of the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, worked together to create the garden, Kelleher said.

He said the hope is that the building will be used as a teaching tool for classes to find resources for LEED certification, sustainability and botany.

Published on September 9, 2013 at 12:47 am