LEED Case Study: Surpassing The Mark

In Marlborough, MA, Boston Scientific pursued LEED Silver for its new headquarters facility, ultimately reached LEED Gold.

By Mark Rowh

As a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of medical solutions, Boston Scientific aims to stay at the cutting edge of advancing technology. Carrying the spirit of innovation over to the facilities arena, in 2014 the company relocated its global headquarters, which included a multi-faceted construction project completed in August 2014. Designed by Boston-based Margulies Perruzzi Architects (MPA), the new four-story building brought 118,000 square feet of creatively designed space to the company’s location in Marlborough, MA. It now serves as the fourth side of the company’s campus quadrangle.

Boston Scientific
(Photo: Warren Patterson Photography)

This new building was Boston Scientific’s first addition to its 500,000 square foot campus, repositioning the corporate workspace from Natick, MA to Marlborough.

Going into the project, an underlying goal was to help in transforming Boston Scientific’s culture, according to Paul Donhauser, director of global facilities operations, real estate & workplace strategy. “The company had gone through a leadership change with a new CEO as well as re-vamped its mission statement, strategic imperatives, and core values,” explains Donhauser. “The facility management goal was to change the built environment to better align with these cultural changes.”

The company had been operating its headquarters in Natick since 1993, and that space was 70% offices and 30% open space. “It looked old and tired,” Donhauser says. “It just didn’t represent our new values.”

His team looked at all the company’s real estate holdings, which also included the existing campus in Marlborough that had been purchased in 2003. They asked themselves questions such as: What was best way to develop infrastructure to support the new corporate values? Where did the workforce, as well as prospective employees, live? What type of talent was the company trying to target and retain?

Completed in 2014, the new four-story building on the Boston Scientific campus brought 118,000 square feet of creatively designed space to the company’s location in Marlborough, MA. The facility is the fourth side of a campus quadrangle. (Photos: Warren Patterson Photography)
Completed in 2014, the new four-story building on the Boston Scientific campus brought 118,000 square feet of creatively designed space to the company’s location in Marlborough, MA. The facility is the fourth side of a campus quadrangle. (Photos: Warren Patterson Photography)

They determined that the Marlborough site would create the best opportunity to align all these objectives and decided to construct a new building to create exactly what they wanted. However, since Marlborough is 15 to 20 minutes farther away from Boston than Natick, planners went to extra lengths to appeal to current and future employees by creating an all-encompassing campus with amenities that might be expected in a more urban setting. These include daycare, a fitness center, hair salon, dry cleaning and athletic fields. In addition, a bus featuring wireless connectivity and coffee makers picks up employees in Boston and drives them to the Marlborough campus.

Directing the project from its start in 2012, Donhauser emphasized a cost-driven approach in support of the new workplace strategy. The idea was to reduce the company’s real estate footprint, create an energetic and collaborative work environment, and refresh the look and feel of the physical space. He initiated a change management process, balancing the message of saving money and creating a more modern workplace. It was at this point that he involved the MPA architectural firm to examine different scenarios for the building.

As the project executive, Donhauser oversaw a cross-functional team that included facilities, human resources, quality, legal, and regulatory functions. He managed the project with the leaders from each of these teams, taking into account operational and business ramifications involving a number of other organizational units. As just one example, the move to new headquarters necessitated changing labels on thousands of products.

Marc Margulies, AIA, LEED AP, principal of MPA, adds that a primary reason for construction of this new building was to create a campus environment where senior leadership in headquarters could be closer to the staff actually doing the research and product development—a dynamic that would be beneficial for everyone.

“The land was available, and the move was a great opportunity to investigate and implement new workplace standards that were ultimately the basis for their new global standards that promote wellness, collaboration, and transparency,” he says.

From the initiation of project planning to the completion of the facility, an underlying goal was to foster an upbeat atmosphere.

“The first thing we wanted to create was ‘wow’ without being over the top,” Donhauser says. “The lobby is a great balance of Boston Scientific branding and a two-story lobby that creates a sense of space.”

The area is designed like a beehive, with meeting rooms wrapped around the two-story lobby. It includes a glass-walled conference room, training room, elevator, and innovation café.

“When you walk in, you get a sense of branding and a highly energetic workspace,” says Donhauser. “There is a large, interactive touchscreen with content that delivers a CEO message, patient stories, employee interviews, community outreach, global locations, and product divisions.”

Other key features were designed to get employees out of their workspaces and interacting with each other in a casual way. All structured offices are in the center, and low-walled workstations on the perimeter allow daylight to penetrate the core. The open office floor plan features glass-fronted private offices away from the perimeter to offer natural light and views for all occupants.

A Chat With Paul Donhauser

Boston Scientific
Paul Donhauser
Vice President, Global Real Estate, Facilities Operations, and EHS
Boston Scientific

What are your responsibilities at Boston Scientific? How long have you worked for the company?

I serve as vice president of global real estate, facilities operations, and environment, health & safety. I’ve worked at Boston Scientific for 12 years.

During your career in facility management, what are one or two notable developments that have impacted how you do your job?

Because of the scope, my job is always active: a growing company with changing real estate needs, especially for the last five years. For the first six years, it was about building up global capabilities—creating a central function for facility management best practices, building and renovating factories, setting up operational teams, and structures for each site. Each team is now 10 years mature. So my focus now is more on company growth with training facilities, labs, etc.—the front end of business. The embrace of workplace strategy is part of that.

The building consists of 75% open space and features LED task lighting and zoned white noise that can be adjusted and calibrated. The center area includes “huddle rooms” for unscheduled informal and casual meetings with Wi-Fi hot spots, comfortable seating, and videoconferencing for collaboration.

The meeting rooms can be configured to accommodate different sized groups throughout the day. Nine telepresence rooms connect with locations including Marlborough, California, Minnesota, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Ireland.

Boston Scientific
The new Boston Scientific building features an open office plan, while also providing numerous walled areas and huddle rooms for collaborative groups of various sizes. (Photo: Warren Patterson Photography)

“The high-definition screens wrap around you, and the conference table is connected to the screens and wraparound too,” Donhauser notes. “It feels like you are in the room with the person on teleconference who could be halfway around the world. These rooms have greatly helped with global collaboration.”

Adjacent to the lobby and viewed from the second floor, the innovation café encourages employee interaction. A training center is accessed from a glass-walled gallery looking into a landscaped courtyard, allowing for small meetings or casual outdoor relaxation. The building’s location was selected so that a courtyard between the new and existing buildings could become a series of outdoor rooms and vegetated meeting areas, accessible to and linking all four buildings. All of the buildings in the quadrangle are also connected by enclosed glass walkways.

“Our goal was to take this headquarters facility, with four generations of employees and 10 departments, and make it work,” says Donhauser. “We asked, how do we look at how people come into work? Where do they congregate? How do we protect people who are involved in heads down work and trying to concentrate?”

LEED Pursuit

Not surprisingly, energy conservation was a major consideration. The building was designed to achieve LEED Silver certification, and in September 2015, the facility was awarded LEED for New Construction (2009) Gold certification (achieving 61 of 110 possible points). The facility, known as Building 300, was also Energy Star certified for 2015, with a score of 93.

Says Donhauser, “We included some smart features—green but also very functional.” A 1.5 megawatt solar array installation on a covered parking structure provides 40% of the campus’ electricity consumption, and car charging stations are also offered.

Accommodating Growth

The greatest challenge of the project was the need to get the building constructed quickly, so the company could move out of its old campus and into the new one, according to Margulies.

“The sequencing of the various groups that needed to move was carefully planned, and the building design and construction process went very smoothly,” he says. “Another challenge was the task of accurately forecasting how large to design the building. While Boston Scientific is a growing company, no one wants to expand its real estate more than necessary.”

Accommodating a larger staff was a necessary part of the picture not only for the new building itself, but for the existing campus. With an additional 800 employees working at the expanded location, the increased staff size necessitated upgrading the full-service cafeteria, as well as the creation of the new fitness and daycare center. These facilities were located in one of the existing buildings, where one of the floors was fully renovated as a pilot project to test the new space standards intended for use in the new headquarters and around the world.

Employees benefit from many other existing campus amenities, including a multimedia auditorium, credit union and scenic woodlands surrounding the headquarters.

Upgrading the Environment

“Both the construction of the new building and the incorporation of headquarters into the Marlborough campus have really changed the work environment for everyone,” Margulies says.

Boston ScientificProject Information

Organization: Boston Scientific global headquarters. Square footage: 118,457. Project Timetable: 2012 to August 2014. Facility Owner: Boston Scientific. In-House Project Managers/Facility Managers: Paul Donhauser, director of global facilities operations, real estate & workplace strategy; Saquib Butt P.E., LEED AP, principal project manager; Scott Santangelo, facilities manager. Architect: Margulies Perruzzi Architects. Construction Manager: Columbia Construction. Civil Engineer: Kelly Engineering. Electrical/Mechanical Engineer: RDK Engineers. Structural Engineer: Odeh Engineers. Plumbing Services: RDK Engineers.

Product Information

Furnishings/Storage: Haworth (workstations); Knoll (offices). Creative Office Pavilion of Boston (executive offices, conference tables, all seating); Mark Richey Woodworking (boardroom). Flooring: Creative Materials Corporation (porcelain tile); Bolon Eight and Johnsonite (resilient flooring); Crossville (tile). Carpet: Interface. Ceilings: Armstrong. Paint/Coatings: Benjamin Moore. Movable Walls: Modernfold. Wall Surfaces: Crossville (tile); Filtzfelt (fabrics, panels); Carnegie, Maharam, Xorel (wallcoverings). Restroom Fixtures: Bobrick. Building Management System: Schneider Electric. Lighting Products: Eaton; Finlite; Philips. HVAC Equipment: Mammoth. Backup Power Equipment: Milton CAT (generator). Roofing: Carlisle. Exit Signs: Isolite. Curtainwalls: Oldcastle; PPG. Elevators: Otis.

He notes that the siting of the building and subsequent design concept both focused on completing the quadrangle of buildings on campus while creating attractive outdoor spaces for meetings and relaxation.

Boston Scientific
The site of the new building on the Boston Scientific headquarters sites was selected to provide for a courtyard between the new and existing buildings. This created a series of outdoor meeting areas, accessible to and linking all four buildings on the campus. (Photos: Warren Patterson Photography)

“This centrally located landscaped courtyard has become the focal point for all the buildings,” he says. “It has changed the tenor from a group of buildings sitting in a highly desirable suburb to a campus destination with robust employee amenities.”

Margulies cites in particular the lobby, which is generously branded with dynamically presented information to express the medical device company’s culture of innovation and achievements in science.

“The branding and messaging gives visitors and employees a greater appreciation for the innovation, product development, and value to medical science—values that are hallmark of Boston Scientific,” he says.

Rowh is a Virginia-based freelancer who writes frequently on topics related to business operations and facilities management.


Data Analytics Helps Drive Pursuit Of ISO 14001

By Anne Cosgrove

When the move to its new headquarters location in Marlborough, MA was complete in August 2014, Boston Scientific’s facility management team had the advantage of a new LEED Gold building added to the company’s existing facilities on the site (see main article, which begins on page 34.) Director of global facilities and real estate and workplace strategy, Paul Donhauser, oversaw the planning and execution of that project, and when it came time to integrate the new 118,000 square foot building into existing operations (now totaling 625,000 square feet), Scott Santangelo, the Marlborough Site Facilities Manager, was at the helm of daily operations.

Boston Scientific’s decision to pursue the ISO 14001 Environment Management System (EMS) standard—a systematic framework to manage immediate and long-term environmental impacts of an organization’s products, services, and processes—motivated Santangelo to seek tools to further this goal from the facility management standpoint. Part of the solution was to introduce data analytics software. Here we talked to him about the results this technology has delivered during the first year.

What are your responsibilities for Boston Scientific facilities?

As the Marlborough Site Facilities Manager, I am responsible for overall site management, planning, budgeting, and staffing.

What has your role been in the company’s striving to adhere to ISO 14001?

I represent the Facilities department on the ISO 14001 team. We have implemented several programs in support of the program which include:

  • Revamped the Marlborough site’s recycle program, which now includes single stream recycling, commercial composting, and general employee re-education. In 12 months, we improved recycle rates from 30% to 65%. We partnered with El Harvey for this program.
  • Introduced a construction waste recycle/reuse program for which we partnered with GRRO and Wakefield Movers to recycle/reuse ceiling tiles, carpet tiles, and modular partitions during interior renovation projects.
  • Installed a 1.5 megawatt solar array, which went live December 2015.

Boston Scientific had a building management system (BMS) installed at the time of the headquarters move and new construction. But you brought in data analytics software to build upon the BMS capabilities. Please describe the implementation, and what did you expect to gain?

We wanted the ability to trend and analyze data of all points on the BMS and provide recommendations based on utility wasted, machine performance, and tenant comfort. These were the main reasons we decided to partner with Schneider Electric for its Building Analytics cloud-based solution.

The Building Analytics solution is a life cycle managed service that delivers automated fault detection, diagnosis, and real-time performance monitoring for buildings.

What was the implementation process like?

There were several weeks of the implementation phase, followed by several months of reviewing system outputs, making adjustments and repairs to the systems reported, and following up with quarterly meetings to review the top 15 items/issues the system was reporting. This system is like having an additional engineer on staff to review the thousands of smaller inefficiencies in our building systems. These inefficiencies can add up to significant energy usage, maintenance costs, or tenant complaints. This has become a daily and long-term planning tool for our facilities team.

How has Building Analytics helped your department become more strategic and/or efficient?

Boston Scientific is using the Building Analytics software to identify building faults and implement actionable measures across its facilities. Specific measures include: adjusting errant temperature sensors that cause improper, automatic override of time-of-day schedules; repairing stuck dampers; and implementing new control sequences to provide proper economizer or time-of-day schedule operations. Additionally, the Building Analytics platform has identified chronic low chilled water temperature differential as a potential savings opportunity on our primary chilled water and condenser water system. These are just some of the initial measures that have been taken to improve building performance.

A total of $14,000 was achieved in cost avoidance through June 2015. During 2014, Boston Scientific achieved savings of 160,184 kWh. The company saved more than $45,000 in avoided utility costs during the first six months of use—enough to have more technicians and another staff engineer working around the clock to ensure all facilities are operating at peak performance.

This project has resulted in a 40% reduction in avoidable cost related to faults, including a 51% reduction in energy related faults as well as a 49% reduction in faults causing improper zone conditions.

Whether related to the Building Analytics implementation, or the operation of your buildings in general, are there any specific lessons learned from this project?

The system can report issues that can’t be economically addressed. We have learned to understand what is and is not possible and had the software triggers adjusted accordingly. There are roughly a few hours a month spent with engineering understanding and putting into perspective the analytics output and deciding what changes should to should not be made. Data analytics is now another tool in our facilities toolbox.


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