Delta Dental of Michigan opens 'green' headquarters
8/29/2011
OKEMOS, Mich., (Aug. 29, 2011) — Delta Dental of Michigan held a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday Aug. 26 to celebrate the grand opening of its renovated and expanded corporate headquarters and rejuvenated grounds in Okemos. Construction began in 2008 and was completed this month.
Speakers at the ribbon cutting ceremony included United States Senator Debbie Stabenow, Congressman Mike Rogers, and Kevin Clinton, commissioner of the Michigan Office of Insurance and Financial Regulation.
The $91 million project included the construction of a new 90,000 square-foot office building as well as the renovation of Delta Dental’s original headquarters, including its expansion from 160,000 to 188,000 square feet. In addition, a new 22,500 square-foot data center was built at the east end of the property. An estimated 40 subcontractors worked on the project, creating 884 construction jobs.
Delta Dental and its affiliated companies are among the largest providers of dental benefit plans in the nation, currently covering nearly 8 million people. Benefits paid for dental treatment topped $2 billion in 2010.
The project was launched in 2008 to allow for future growth, with the company estimating that its local workforce will grow by up to 100 jobs over the next 10 years. Delta Dental currently has 400 employees at its Okemos location.
“Our priority as a business is to make dental care available to more people through quality benefit plans,” said Dr. Thomas J. Fleszar, president and CEO of Delta Dental. “This additional space will accommodate growth and enable us to keep providing exceptional service to our millions of customers and thousands of participating dentists.”
Delta Dental’s new space conforms to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and the company is seeking Gold LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
“The project incorporated the world’s best practices for designing and constructing energy-efficient, environmentally-sensitive buildings,” Fleszar said. “Building green helps us to create a workplace that promotes health and productivity, and reduces our impact on the environment.”
Sustainable design features include:
- Use of recycled building materials.
- Large windows to maximize natural lighting.
- Use of bioswales and plant material on the roof to minimize storm water runoff and provide natural thermal insulation.
- Rejuvenated grounds with native ground covers, prairie grasses, wildflowers and trees.
- The development and maintenance of a native wildlife habitat.
- An increased pond surface area (Ingham County’s Smith Drain) to provide nearly 160,000 cubic feet of additional storm water storage for the community.
Delta Dental received the Environmental Stewardship Award from Meridian Township in 2010 for the renovation of the Smith Drain. In addition, the new data center is one of only a few worldwide to have earned a Tier III rating for design from the Uptime Institute, which evaluates data centers based on their electrical power handling capability.
About Delta Dental of Michigan
Delta Dental of Michigan and its affiliates in Indiana, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee collectively are among the largest dental plan administrators in the nation. In 2010, the enterprise paid out more than $2 billion for dental care for nearly 8 million enrollees. Michigan offices are located in Okemos and Farmington Hills.