The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building project is located in Fort Snelling, Minnesota near the runways of the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport and it opened back in 1969. The time has come for major renovations and the GSA awarded Ryan Construction the project with HGA as project architect.

Currently, the building consists of over 684,000 sq. ft. of office space that houses over 1,100 government employees working for 39 federal agencies including Veterans Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service , the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

This renovation is one of the biggest projects on the GSA’s national green building renovation list and will include:

• Making improvements to the building’s energy efficiency
• Removing hazardous materials
• Adding thicker insulation
• Updating plumbing, heating & cooling, fire protection and electrical systems
• Replacing windows
• Renovating common areas

Eggers is proud to be providing over 900 flush wood doors and transoms. What is unique about this project is that the veneer is from the Ash trees that were cut down during renovation. This is recycling at its best. All of the Ash trees on site were harvested and the logs were sent to the Bacon Veneer Company in Iowa.

This is not the usual process for acquiring “A” grade veneer. Veneer suppliers like Bacon Veneer would normally send out master log buyers to look for the best trees that could be used for veneer. Typically, 1 out of every 100 trees supplies veneer to meet “A” grade standards. The rest is used for lumber and wood fiber.

In this instance, Bacon chose the very best of what they had to work with, sliced the veneer and made the faces per our specifications. This resulted in beautiful doors with a lot of natural characteristics and a rustic appearance.  The trees from the site are now a permanent fixture in the B.H. Whipple Building’s doors and paneling.

These FSC®-certified doors will also contribute to the project’s goal of achieving a LEED® Silver rating.  This project is slated to be finished in June of 2014.