A place to see and be seen
Residents and local leaders in the northwest Ohio region are enjoying a new “green” arena in downtown Toledo. Connected to the SeaGate Convention Centre and near a Minor League baseball stadium, Huntington Center accommodates professional hockey, arena football and other entertainment and community events.
The Lucas County, Ohio, Board of Commissioners, which owns and operates the facility, and all project stakeholders wanted the arena to be as energy efficient as possible. Planners established sustainability goals for the project from the beginning, including the achievement of LEED Silver certification from the Washington-based U.S. Green Building Council. The county contracted with Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB Architecture and locally based The Collaborative Inc. to manage all architectural services for the new center’s construction, which had an aggressive 18-month construction schedule.
Completed in August 2009, Huntington Center is a 260,000-square-foot, three-story building with 8,000 seats, 22 suites and 1,200 club seats. Along with banquet space and a suite-level club with outdoor roof terraces, the suites and club seats will generate extra revenue for the publicly owned facility,
The building exterior features a 900-square-foot vegetative screen or “green wall,” on which plant life grows to help cool the arena during the summer by shading the glass-enclosed main entrance. Other “green” features include waterless urinals, automated faucets and heat-recovery ventilators. Rainwater collected onsite is used for rain gardens and a water feature near the north entry plaza. Micro turbines reduce the facility’s energy demand and produce power that can be added to the electrical grid in the future. Locally produced materials were used as much as possible in the arena’s construction. County officials expect the arena to achieve LEED Gold status and to become one of the first LEED-certified arenas in the United States.
Project: Huntington Center arena
Jurisdictions: Toledo; Lucas County, Ohio
Lead agency: Lucas County, Ohio, Board of Commissioners
Contractors involved: Kansas City, Mo.-based HNTB Architecture; Toledo, Ohio-based The Collaborative and The Lathrop Company
Date completed: August 2009
Cost: $105 million
