Thinking About the Lobby

While we’re waiting for the official go ahead from the City, there are plenty of details to obsess over. Lately we’ve been revisiting where the main entrance should be and how folks will get to the public portions of the building. The current main entrance is right up against Pershing Road with no room for a ramp or a proper front porch. Anyone parking their car in the lot behind the building would need to walk about 600 feet to get to the door, so it makes sense to put the entrance on the east facade, close to what will be the main passenger elevators to the public areas. Two of the 11 freight elevator shafts will be converted to passenger use, while a few others will make fine convection ducts to move excess heat around.

On the financial end, by borrowing a larger pile of money up front, we can immediately insulate the walls and roof, and rebuild the windows with low-e double pane glass. The energy savings from those tasks boggles the mind. We’d go from a projected annual heating bill of $145,000 down to about $30,000. Once we start to recycle waste heat from the farm, we won’t be paying anything at all for gas.

Here are a few views of what the lobby might look like. Note the living wall at the back.