Green With Envy
By Tony Illia

Yes, Las Vegas is legendary as a party town, but its residents also care about animals.

The Animal Foundation, a Las Vegas nonprofit organization, is currently building a $14.5 million pet adoption/care complex at 644 N. Mojave Road in northeast Las Vegas.

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The 74,000-sq.-ft. project consists of 44 animal bungalows, totaling 264 kennels, plus a 35,000-sq.-ft. adoption center expansion. The 8-acre project is seeking a platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, its highest rating.

Designed by Tate Snyder Kimsey Architects of Henderson, the facility will be powered by 26 solar photovoltaic panels and six wind turbines that generate 67 percent of its total electricity usage onsite. The campus received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, as a renewable energy demonstration project. It also got a $179,000 award from Nevada Power Co. for using photovoltaic energy.

Plans call for an on-campus "living machine" that treats onsite wastewater through a natural filtration process for reuse in non-potable applications. The facility currently requires roughly 27,000 gallons of water a day to wash out the animal kennels. The living machine will dramatically reduce the nonprofit foundation's water costs, enabling it to recycle 80 percent of its water.

"We will be using our most abundant desert resource, sunlight, to recycle our most scarce one, water," said Randy Spitzmesser, Tate Snyder Kimsey's project architect. "The design concept was to create something that was not only environmentally responsible, but an interesting place that prompted people to check- it -out, and in the process adopt an animal."

The bungalows are single-story, wood-framed framed buildings with aluminum siding, making for a low-maintenance facility that doesn't emit harmful emissions. Each bungalow also has a 25-ft.-tall tower with louvers for passive ventilation to cool the animals during the summer, while recycling the air to minimize odors.

The solar panel trees, which run down the middle of the campus, double as shade awnings. And each slab has an embedded electrical coil, powered by photovoltaic energy, which dissipates heat during the day while keeping the floor warm at night.

One snag in the project came when the project's general contractor, Tradewinds Construction of Las Vegas, began site preparation.

"The site once served as a city sewer treatment plant that had been abandoned in the 70s," said Jeffrey Vilkin, president of Tradewinds. "They had apparently razed the top of the structure, then covered it with 15 -ft. of dirt and filled two giant underground tanks with garbage."

Remediation meant exporting the contaminated soil, importing 50,000 cu. yds of new soil, and removing the tanks. It could have potentially added millions of dollars to the construction cost, jeopardizing the project's future.

But team members came -up with an innovative solution. They recycled the concrete from the buried plant, screening and crushing it into a fine power that was mixed -in with the soil. It ultimately created a more stable material, enabling them to reuse it as backfill.

Tradewinds also helped defray expenses by value engineering the bungalows, which were originally intended to be steel structures. Steel prices, however, were rising 20 to 30 percent per month when the project began, so they opted for wood construction instead, which saved nearly $1.4 million in material costs.

"We received the animal pound contracts from the cities of North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Clark County," said Diane Orgill, foundation executive director. "So we're now looking at 55,000 to 60,000 animals being turned in each year."

Under local ordinances, all lost or stray dogs and cats must be brought to the pound, where they are neutered, spayed and put -up for adoption.

The bungalows are scheduled to open this month, followed by the adoption expansion in October. The expanded facilities will double the foundation's current capacity. A tentative third phase calls for a veterinarian school and a 4,500-sq.-ft. barn for larger animals such as horses.