In 2007, Kansas City Power & Light Co. (KCP&L) entered into an agreement with the Sierra Club to reduce the utility company's overall CO2 emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020 through compliance with legislative and regulatory changes. Accordingly, KCP&L is taking considerable steps to improve its facilities through aggressive sustainable design solutions. BNIM's LEED Gold design for KCP&L's new headquarters is teaching an old building new tricks. The decision to relocate into One Kansas City Place, a 1980s office tower in downtown Kansas City, pushes the envelope on what is possible for retrofitting older buildings to today's sustainable design standards.

The ultimate goal was to incorporate advanced energy-efficient design and technology to minimize KCP&L's corporate carbon footprint and create a showplace for energy efficiency. KCP&L's new office space not only demonstrates the ability to introduce high performance, integrated design into an existing office tower, but also serves as a powerful example to other building owners, business owners and customers. The new space is a flexible, healthy and productive work environment for KCP&L's employees.

In the early stages of the project, BNIM and KCP&L developed a ‘sustainable design strategy,‘ which helped guide decision-making during programming, design and construction phases. Included in this strategy were goals for LEED certification and criteria for selecting building systems and materials. It was a common goal of all team members to integrate systems, materials and processes that conserved energy and produced a healthier work environment. The design redistributes offices to the core of the space, with open offices along the perimeter, to maximize daylight. Demountable walls and high levels of both recycled and recyclable materials ensure that the space embodies healthy workplace practices and focuses on indoor air quality.