Built in 2003, the Boulder Shelter’s facility at 4869 North Broadway was designed and built to minimize environmental impacts and operating costs. The Shelter is a LEED-compliant structure and one of the very first green-built shelters in the United States. Some of the building’s features include:

• A geo-exchange heating and cooling system
• A 10KW photovoltaic system used for providing electricity
• Automatic light switches that turn lights off when rooms are not occupied
• Skylights that provide natural light so that lights can be turned off during the day
• A very low wattage/SF lighting system
• Programmable thermostats
• High performance windows
• Low-flow plumbing fixtures
• Landscaping designed to capture and use rain water
• Low water use trees, shrubs and plants
• Front loading, low water use washing machines
• The building is located on a major bus line
• Almost all of the Shelter’s furniture and furnishings were previously used in for-profit businesses

The movie below provides a two-minute photo tour of the Shelter—press the play button to start. (The movie is a 8MB Flash file and may take a few minutes to load.) If you do not have Flash Player, you can download it for free from here.