Tesoro Treasures Green Building for New Headquarters

Independent petroleum refiner and marketer Tesoro Corporation is cementing its commitment to environmentally sound operations with a new LEED-Silver corporate headquarters campus now under construction in San Antonio, Texas.

The campus is part of a new master-planned office park being developed by Patrinely Group, Houston. Located on 122 acres in north San Antonio, the campus will include two buildings, 14 and 6 stories, plus a parking garage for 2,300 cars. Tesoro will occupy 600,000 square feet, leaving another 618,000 square feet as rentable space.

The office buildings are pan-and-joist concrete construction; the parking structure is precast. Building features include an under-floor HVAC system, cafeteria and fitness center, and conference facilities. Completion is scheduled for 2009.

Architect is the Houston office of Gensler, general contractor is D.E. Harvey Builders, and the structural engineer is Haynes Whaley Associates.
Contact Amy Trygestad.

NRMCA Names Reese Promoter of the Year

The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association has named Barrett Reese of Texas Industries as the recipient of the 2008 Promoter of the Year Award.  Reese has furthered the concrete and cement industries for more than 40 years in his career at TXI, serving on multiple industry boards, committees, subcommittees, task forces, and groups during that time.

He has served on multiple committees for the Texas Aggregates and Concrete Association as well as the Cement Council of Texas and has regularly participated in planning sessions and has helped steer the strategic direction of both groups. He has worked to bring groups to Texas to demonstrate new technologies for use of cement and concrete in paving and other construction segments, most recently hosting a group of promoters from around the U.S. along with PCA to demonstrate the application of an emerging cement slurry technology. 

He is currently the chairman of PCA’s Market Measurement Subcommittee, which was created in the last year to better assess the effectiveness of promotion strategies.  On the national level, Reese has worked with PCA and NRMCA in many capacities, including helping to develop the annual Professional Promoters Workshop.

NRMCA established the Promoter of the Year Award in 2003 to recognize individuals who have tried to maximize concrete’s share of the construction materials market, spread concrete innovation and support the positive image of the industry’s quality, value and professionalism.  The award was presented last month at the Association’s Annual Convention in Las Vegas.

Holcim to Co-Sponsor Mass Impact Symposium

Holcim (US) Inc. will co-sponsor the second session of Mass Impact, a two-part symposium addressing cities and climate change, on June 9. The Boston Society of Architects (BSA) and MIT's School of Architecture and Planning will lead the symposium, which will examine "Energy and Mobility in the Green City."

Patrick Dolberg, president and CEO of Holcim, will be joining Nicky Gavron, the 2004-2008 deputy mayor of London, and others to discuss the implementation and design of new technologies to yield low-impact energy and low-impact transportation systems.

Panel discussions will focus on the low-impact energy and transportation systems used in Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, London, and other cities that have combined new technologies with government policies to mitigate the inefficiency of centralized energy systems and automobile traffic.
For more information on Mass Impact, visit architects.org/massimpact.

Concrete Makes an Impression on Tour Attendees

More than 70 home building professionals attended the fourth annual Concrete Technologies Tour last week in Charlotte, N.C.

Produced by the Concrete Home Building Council (CHBC) of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the Tour showcases residential concrete products and applications.  Participants visited a small subdivision of finished concrete masonry homes, under-construction ICF homes (American PolySteel), a Superior Walls precast factory, an ICF molding factory (Modern Polymers), and a new CEMEX ready-mix facility.  Additionally, they witnessed demonstrations of staining and polishing concrete at a decorative concrete distributorship (Carolina Bomanite) and went to a jobsite utilizing fiber-cement siding from James Hardie.  

The attendees represented a broad spectrum of the home building industry, including builders, architects, realtors, and concrete industry professionals.   Persons registered for the Tour also had the opportunity to attend the NAHB’s Green Building Verifiers class.  
For more information on CHBC its activities, visit www.nahb.org/concrete.

Texas Tests Post-Tensioned Pavement on I-35: Researchers are constructing a two-mile test section of post-tensioned concrete on I-35 near Hillsboro, Texas. The slab will be post-tensioned in 300-foot sections. University of Texas in Austin, pioneers in post-tensioned highways, and TexDOT officials will be monitoring performance of the test section. Contractor is W.W. Webber, Houston.

FDR Demo Slated for Tennessee: The Southeast Cement Association will conduct a demonstration of Full-Depth Reclamation (FDR) on Saturday, June 14, in Sevierville, Tenn. The Sevierville Public Works Department will host the presentation and project demonstration.
Contact Mary Lynn Stoval at the Southeast Cement Association.

Green Rating Systems Should Extend to Roads and Include Durability

Green or sustainable rating systems such as LEED now cover buildings and homes. Do you think they should extend to highways and streets? (In comments, tell us if you think they would favor concrete or asphalt and why.)

> Yes (79%)
> No (21%)

Notable comments
“Concrete, because no matter how the asphalt industry tries to position HMA, the runoff from an asphalt surface still contains pollutants.”

“LEED needs to incorporate life cycle/durability credits and give higher points to those elements.”

“They should favor concrete based on life cycle cost analysis. Asphalt needs resurfacing too frequently.”

“Society needs no more bureaucratic impositions. Intelligent designers and aware developers will do what is right and socially acceptable.”

“LEED standards for roads and highways should include rating the end use of the bridge or highway--is it green or does it lead to more waste? e.g. if it streamlines traffic and saves fuel consumption it gets a better score than if it impedes traffic and increases fuel consumption.”

“The unique paradigm in sustainable pavements is that the asphalt industry boasts about recyclability yet the reason they are recycled is due to the fact they do not last. Concrete pavement can last in excess of 50 years while an asphalt pavement is recycled 3 to 4 times over that same time period, requiring massive amounts of energy consumption. But, the sustainability movement spends more time focusing on the energy required to produce cement. Asphalt also gets a pass on being the #1 point source for hydrocarbon-based pollutants. Go figure.”
Take this week’s poll.