BlueCross’ headquarters, spanning 950,000 square feet of office space, is the largest LEED Gold corporate campus in Tennessee, and the second largest in the US.
Blues Cross’s masterplanning goals has included sustainability, innovation and wellness in the design. This has helped in better cost controlling and increased efficiency. It has also helped in transforming the work environment to meet the needs of employees, members and the health care community.
Located at Cameron Hill in Tennessee, the campus reduces energy costs by more than 20% or $265,000 annually. It also helps in saving 20 million gallons of water annually by using ultra low-flow plumbing fixtures, a water-efficient irrigation system and low water-use plants.
The design lay-out employs an underfloor air distribution system and ventilation rates that are 30% higher than required by code. This has helped to improve indoor air quality for employees. Storm water runoff has also been decreased by 15%. The design has also reduced global warming impacts and ozone depletion through the use of a more efficient cooling system that does not use ozone depleting chemicals.
Major partners involved in planning the BlueCross corporate campus include architectural firms Duda/Paine, headquartered in Durham, N.C.; HKS, headquartered in Dallas, Texas; Artech Design Group, headquartered in Chattanooga, Tenn; tvsdesign in Atlanta, Ga.; Tune Design in Chattanooga, Tenn. and HGOR, a planning and landscaping design firm out of Atlanta, with local partnership from Sawyer Landscaping. The construction management team consisted of Skanska, EMJ Corporation and H.J. Russell & Company.
