Mortenson to Complete 4th Project with National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado

The Denver Operating Group and Federal Contracting Group will build a new research laboratory facility on the South Table Mountain Campus of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. This will mark the fourth time Mortenson has completed a project at this facility, boosting NREL’s capabilities for early-stage research.

The 15,700-square-foot Research and Innovation Laboratory will provide multipurpose lab space for cross-disciplinary research at the intersection of chemistry, materials science, bioscience and engineering in support of a breadth of energy efficiency and renewable energy research areas, including 5,500 square feet of flexible lab space.

The total budget for the RAIL project is $19.5 million, with $15.5 million awarded to Mortenson under a Design-Build contract. RAIL is designed by Davis Partnership Architects and will serve as an example of flexible, sustainable, high-performance building design. Energy-efficient technologies such as heat recovery evaporative cooling and infrastructure to support future renewable technologies will be included in the design. The electrical infrastructure will additionally accommodate a future microgrid, allowing the building to run from completely renewable sources in the future.

This facility will be first of its kind on the NREL campus. A typical process for constructing a research laboratory is to build the facility around the specific user research. This facility, however, features a highly flexible and adaptable design that will allow for many different user groups to utilize the various spaces. The RAIL also boasts exceptional collaboration space both indoors and outdoors that will allow for innovative brainstorming to take place among the researchers.