DPR Creates Sustainable Success on Intuit Corporate Consolidation, One of the Largest LEED for Commercial Interiors Projects

Consolidating four offices and 1,300 employees spread across the greater San Diego area, Intuit Inc., the maker of finance software with titles like Quicken and TurboTax®, decided to maximize efficiency in both its use of office space and the four-building campus itself through green building. When Intuit leased the campus on Torrey Santa Fe Road from Kilroy Realty in 2005, the process began on one of the largest LEED® for Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI) projects ever attempted.

Targeting Silver LEED-CI certification, each of the four buildings is comprised of four floors, totaling 465,000 sq. ft. The first floor of each building features a different community asset: a fitness center, cafeteria, game room and a training and usability center with a sound room, while the upper three floors include office space. Intuit took a departure from common office design and opted for more open space broken up into neighborhoods with each department sharing a “courtyard” area filled with writable surfaces and large tables designed for increased communication and collaboration. Designed by Carrier-Johnson, the 12 floors of office space with similar layouts and modular office systems, also proved to be a time-saving feature during construction.

“We were able to work through the first couple of floors and develop a system of flow for the subs. By the third floor of the 12, subcontractors flowed through the buildings seamlessly and efficiently,” said Whitney Dorn of DPR. The entire campus was turned over two weeks ahead of an aggressive 10-month schedule in August with the LEED certification submission nearing completion.

Throughout the campus are a host of green elements, including low-flow plumbing fixtures, high-efficiency lighting systems and recycled carpeting. According to Dorn, the DPR team took the lead on many of the green features due to the company’s experience and trained personnel in green construction. In an effort to simplify the complicated certification documents and further educate the team on the requirements around green building, DPR developed a more detailed set of bid documents for subcontractors and suppliers that specify green materials broken down by trade. These new tools are currently being further refined to be used across all of DPR’s 10 offices.

“Subcontractor education was absolutely vital to this project. It was critical that everyone, especially the people doing the work, understood the LEED requirements.” said Kelly Devereaux of DPR, “At one point, to set the standard of responsibility, we even had our superintendent out there diving into dumpsters to remove items that could be recycled.” And setting the example paid off, with close to 70 percent of jobsite waste diverted from landfills.

The team also paid special attention to the site and air quality. “We wanted to make sure that we not only gave the owner a clean space to live in but also took care of our workers. At the end of this project, some of these guys will have been inside this building everyday for nine months, and their air needs to be clean too,” said Jack Wright of DPR. “We used all low- or no-VOC adhesives, paints and sealants inside the building, and the air quality is so much better inside this space that we are having subs request these types of products on all jobs.”