State-of-the art district-wide energy system and water recycling treatment plant to serve San Francisco’s largest mixed-use waterfront neighborhood to meet aggressive sustainability goals and projections
When San Francisco’s Mission Rock development welcomes its first tenants to the new 28-acre waterfront neighborhood next month, it also marks the initiation of services for the development’s innovative utilities. This includes a district energy system that will efficiently heat and cool residential and commercial buildings and California’s largest private black water treatment plant.
In June 2021, Mission Rock was certified under the US Green Building Council’s LEED for Neighborhood Development program. Mission Rock was recognized for its integrated approach to smart growth, social equity and green building practices.
The project partners, which include the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco, partnered with Minnesota-based Ever-Green Energy to ensure the new development achieves its target of 100% renewable energy sources for building energy use to eliminate or offset the majority of the project’s operational greenhouse gas emissions.
Managed by Ever-Green Energy, Mission Rock Utilities’ district energy system uses a shared energy plant to supply both heating and cooling to the entire development, replacing the need for equipment in each building. At full build-out, the energy and black water recycling systems are estimated to reduce annual energy usage by 24,000 MMBtu, water and non-potable water usage by 18 million gallons per year, sewer discharge by 12 million gallons per year, and CO2 emissions by 1,600 tons per year. The district energy system is designed to eventually use bay water as a geoexchange source to heat and cool the buildings, which, when coupled with renewable electricity, will serve all buildings with carbon-free energy. By replacing conventional cooling towers, the bay water exchange system is expected to conserve millions of gallons of water per year while achieving the city’s goals of reducing water use.
“Mission Rock demonstrates what can be achieved when you adopt aggressive environmental sustainability goals,” said Julian Pancoast, vice president of development for the San Francisco Giants. “The entire project team is excited to realize our vision to create a project that will support community resilience for decades to come.”
The blackwater recycling system allows wastewater collected from sinks, showers, toilets, etc. to be treated on site to meet all non-potable needs such as irrigation, toilet flushing, and cooling tower makeup water throughout the entire project. At peak operations, the treatment plant will service approximately 64,000 gallons of water per day, and produce up to 43,000 gallons of recycled water per day.
“The Mission Rock development demonstrates that climate solutions for buildings are feasible and scalable,” said Ever-Green Energy CEO Ken Smith. “The San Francisco Giants, the Port of San Francisco and Tishman Speyer have remained steadfast to their sustainability commitments, and it has been an honor to work with them on this project. It is truly history in the making.”
“Mission Rock has presented opportunities to establish elevated standards throughout the development process. From employing a more diverse workforce for the design and construction, to following through on impactful sustainable infrastructure and wellbeing targets, our team is thrilled to see Phase 1 take shape and deliver on these commitments,” said Maggie Kadin, Managing Director of Development for Tishman Speyer.
In addition to the creation of Mission Rock Utilities, the project team adopted other features to meet its sustainability and climate resiliency goals. This includes raising the center of the site to accommodate a projection of 66 inches of sea level rise and adaptive management strategies to address localized shoreline flooding and changes in future sea level rise forecasts. Shoreline open spaces will include drought and saline tolerant species in landscape plantings to make them resilient to climate change impacts. Streets and utilities at Mission Rock have been engineered to minimize differential settlement between buildings and streets to avoid problems experienced in parts of Mission Bay where sidewalks and utilities are separated from buildings. The Mission Rock program mix, street design and site connectivity also encourage residents and workers to select alternative modes of transportation including walking, cycling and transit services, reducing transportation-related carbon emissions by up to 20%.
For more information, visit missionrock.com.
About Tishman Speyer (tishmanspeyer.com)
Tishman Speyer is a leading owner, developer, operator and investment manager of first-class real estate in 33 key markets across the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Our portfolio spans market rate and affordable residential communities, premier office properties and retail spaces, industrial facilities, and mixed-use campuses. We create state-of-the-art life science centers through our Breakthrough Properties joint venture, and foster innovation through our strategic proptech investments. With global vision, on-the-ground expertise and a personalized approach, we are unparalleled in our ability to foster innovation, quickly adapt to global and local trends and proactively anticipate our customers’ evolving needs. By focusing on health and wellness, enlightened placemaking and customer-focused initiatives such as our tenant amenities platform, ZO, and our flexible space and co-working brand, Studio, we tend not just to our physical buildings, but to the people who inhabit them on a daily basis. Since our inception in 1978, Tishman Speyer has acquired, developed, and operated 531 properties, totaling 221 million square feet, with a combined value of approximately $130 billion (U.S.). Our current portfolio includes such iconic assets as Rockefeller Center in New York City, The Springs in Shanghai, TaunusTurm in Frankfurt and the Mission Rock neighborhood currently being realized in San Francisco.
About the San Francisco Giants (sfgiants.com)
One of the oldest teams in Major League Baseball, the 139-year old franchise moved to San Francisco from New York in 1958. After playing a total of 42 years in Seals Stadium and Candlestick Park, the team moved to the privately constructed, downtown ballpark on the corner of 3rd and King in 2000. The organization is widely recognized for its innovative business practices and baseball excellence having been named in the past decade the Sports Organization of the Year by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, Organization of the Year by Baseball America and ESPN’s Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year. Oracle Park is also the only ballpark in the country to have earned Silver, Gold and Platinum LEED certification for an existing building. Since opening its gates, Oracle Park has become internationally-renowned as a premier venue in the world of both sports and entertainment. On the diamond, more than 64 million spectators have witnessed countless magical moments, including three World Series Championships (2010, 2012 & 2014), the raising of four National League Pennants and eight playoff appearances. The ballpark has also hosted some of music’s biggest acts, including Lady Gaga, Beyoncé & Jay Z, Ed Sheeran, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, Green Day and Billy Joel.