Centre's Champions Hall set the standard for sustainable construction

You might say that sustainability is at the foundation of Champions Hall. But in truth, it goes deeper than that. 

The newly opened facility offers cutting-edge approaches to athletic excellence and personal well-being. From the serene multipurpose rooms used for yoga and meditation classes to the state-of-the-art natatorium, Champions Hall ups the ante for the student experience at Centre. 

The forward-looking nature of Centre’s mission is also reflected in the environmentally responsible ethos that influenced virtually every aspect of the facility. 

Sustainability at Champions Hall runs deeper than the foundation of the building and extends to its upper-most reaches — literally. It’s baked in the fabric of the building and informed the design and construction from start to finish. 

“Champions Hall is a testament to Centre’s commitment to environmentally friendly practices,” said College president Milton C. Moreland. “Countless hours were dedicated to making the largest building on campus the most sustainable one. Not only will the features we incorporated pay dividends in terms of energy savings, they will also benefit the environment in direct, tangible ways that help make the future brighter for our students and entire community.” 

From the bottom up

The key to sustainability at Champions Hall lies in its integration from the very earliest conversations about constructing a new facility on campus. 

The roots go back nearly two decades, said Brett Werner, associate professor of environmental studies and director of sustainability on campus, when Centre joined the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. Sustainability and environmentally friendly practices have been incorporated into the campus master plan and are part of the planning of any construction project or renovation plan ever since. 

“We said that anytime we made new buildings, we would make them to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards and make them sustainable,” he said. 

LEED is the world's most widely used “green” building rating system, ranking projects on a scale from certified to silver and gold, culminating in platinum. Other campus projects have achieved LEED certification and adopted sustainable practices since that pledge was signed, but Champions Hall is poised to be the most impressive LEED project on campus. 

Part of what makes it so impressive are the challenges posed by a facility like Champions Hall. It’s easier to make “green” buildings when there are smaller rooms to light, heat and cool. In addition to the climate-control challenges posed by the massive field house and natatorium, heating a 750,000-gallon pool is no small feat. 

But a key to making that process more sustainable lies beneath Champions Hall in the form of geothermal wells, which help provide power for the building and most of the heating needed for the massive Olympic-sized swimming and diving facility. 

“It was a big financial commitment to go with geothermal during the planning process,” Werner said. “But when you consider the economic return on investment and the environmental return on investment, the geothermal is pretty amazing.”

Not only will the geothermal wells pay for themselves over time due to energy cost savings, but the federal Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 allows contractors to pass along tax rebates to non-profit customers, shortening the time needed for the cost of installation to be offset. 

“It’s a great deal from a college-expense side of things,” Werner said. “And we are keeping greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere.”

Estimates predict only a handful of days each year will need natural gas heating to augment the geothermal production. 

The end result is a pool several times larger than the previous swimming pool on campus, heated for a fraction of the cost with renewable energy instead of natural gas. 

A top-down approach

The second largest commitment to sustainability made during the planning stages was to place a massive solar array on the roof of Champions Hall. 

The solar energy will help offset the cost of cooling the 135,000-square-foot facility. The assistance will be most felt on warm, sunny days when the sun is brightest and the cooling help is needed most. 

Adding the solar panels was aided by a gift from Jim Seabury '87, an athletics hall-of-fame member and former trustee who serves as CEO of Enterprise Solutions, a Nashville-based electrical construction and design company. 

The installation process also proved to have deep ties in the Centre alumni community with Werner putting the number of Centre grads and interns who have worked with Lexington-based Solar Energy Solutions at more than a dozen. 

“Devin Hester, who was in charge of the installation, was in the class of 2017,” Werner said. “So we have some really good connections there.”

One of the benefits of working with newer technologies is the speed of advancements. The solar panels currently installed atop Champions Hall produce more energy than was forecast in the planning stages. 

Building on a sustainable foundation 

The solar panels are also more energy efficient than those in use elsewhere on campus. 

In a way, Champions Hall is the culmination of several sustainable practices at the College.

Geothermal energy was implemented in the construction of Northside Hall in 2019, helping the residence hall attain LEED Silver certification. 

“Many of the things being done here are things we’ve done before on campus — though maybe not on the scale of Champions Hall,” Werner said. 

“We have geothermal on campus. We have solar panels on several buildings. We have LED lighting and light sensors and a variety of things. But in Champions Hall, all these things came together.”

Werner believes that Champions Hall benefitted from those smaller “green” projects and will also serve as a testament to the benefits of implementing sustainable practices for future projects. 

While Champions Hall is home to the latest and largest sustainable initiatives on campus, it’s far from the only one. Brockman Commons, Pearl Hall, Northside Hall and Young Hall, along with the Norton Center for the Arts and the Roush Campus Center are all LEED Certified buildings. A campus-wide lighting project retrofit facilities with energy-efficient lighting, bottle filling stations around campus reduce single-use plastic waste and buildings have been outfitted with more efficient low-energy cooling systems. 

“We put it all together in Champions Hall because, in some ways, it is a perfect building for it, and we've been learning in all these other places,” Werner said. 

Along with solar arrays on campus, Centre purchased blocks of renewable energy credits through the local Mother Ann Lee Hydroelectric Station on the Kentucky River in Shakertown. The power plant is one of only a few dozen hydropower plants nationally to have received low-impact certification from the Low Impact Hydro Institute.

“Centre prepares students for rewarding and meaningful futures,” said President Moreland. “In doing so, we must adopt sustainable practices and utilize environmentally sound technologies to ensure that future is a bright one.”