Building Size:  127,000 square feet

Site Size:  11 acres

The project was conceived when the State resolved to merge its city-wide dispersed agencies into a single facility, offering maximum public access to services.

An underutilized site near downtown was preferred, offering high visibility and ease of locating along a prominent arterial street.  This active underground brownfield site was formerly a railyard; however, all evidence of the railyard had been removed years prior. And this district had been overlain with a form-based zoning code, intended to spawn redevelopment of the stagnant and still gritty area.

The history of the site inspired a railyard concept for the new development, where railyard components are used for contemporary uses - in quite literal interpretations.  Interior finishes are reimagined with modern components juxtaposed against historic railyard imagery and materials that recall the past including a chandelier, inspired by the actual layout of the railyard, that greets visitors in the main lobby. Glass etchings of historic photos mediate between the sky lobby and the meeting rooms, and other railyard inspirations are dispersed throughout the interior atmosphere of the building and the site.  

A single secure entry lobby is arranged to allow for approach from all directions.  Arrangement of the eleven agencies within the building includes the most visited agencies on the lower levels with diminishing visitor travel to the agencies on the upper floors. Offices are arranged at the perimeters of the thin floor plates and along with a façade dotted with fenestration maximizes access to dynamic views of the outside urban environment and to Casper Mountain while offering abundant natural light to be borrowed deep within the interior spaces. 

The facility is strategically aligned to engage the rails-to-trails bike path traversing the site, offering pedestrian friendly interaction and an urban connection that encourages visitors and staff to use all modes of transport to access the facility. One wing of the facility is angled toward downtown at the same trajectory that the rail lines traversed the prairie – an ode to the prevailing winds for minimization of snow drifting on the railroad tracks.

The façade is at once governmental, modern, and nods to the historic red brick buildings within the district and their recurrent façade and fenestration motifs.

Below it all, residual petroleum contaminants in the site’s soil and groundwater is being monitored and addressed by active environmental remediation.