New baseball stadium features
green-certified Diversey products

Precisely cut fields weren’t the only “green” in evidence when the Minnesota Twins baseball franchise opened its new stadium on April 12, 2010 with a 5-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. There was green in the cleaning, too, thanks to the expertise of Marsden Building Maintenance L.L.C. and Diversey products certified by the Greenguard Environmental Institute.

Target Field, the team’s new 39,715-seat ball park, is the second major league ball park in the United States certified LEED Silver by the U.S. Green Building Council. Environmentally favorable cleaning policies and practices, and the use of green-certified products can contribute points toward a facility’s LEED certification. That’s part of how Marsden won a three-year contract with the Twins to clean and maintain the stadium. Using Diversey products, Marsden teams clean and maintain the stadium’s miles of concourses and plazas and common eating areas, as well as its 667 restroom fixtures and 54 luxury suites. More than 3.2 million visitors passed through the stadium in 2010, a record for the franchise.

“Using sustainable products and best practices is part of Marsden’s cleaning plan,” said Mike Kilsdonk, LEED green associate and manager of operations support services for Marsden. “Diversey is part of that plan because its products and support services help us achieve our goals. We designed our cleaning program to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED green building rating system. Diversey’s Green Seal-certified products and GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality certified program help us maintain safe and healthy facilities for our clients.”

As one of the greenest stadiums in professional sports, the Twins’ Target Field is the vanguard in sports facility construction and management. With imagination and effort, the stadium was made better for the environment and the surrounding community, healthier for people and more cost-effective than conventional construction, Twins officials said.

The Minnesota state legislature made certification a goal of the project in the legislation authorizing a county tax as part of the funding. The requirement was contingent on the availability of funding to assist the effort to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification requirements of the U.S. Green Building Council. The Twins and the Minnesota Ballpark Authority donated $2.5 million to cover the costs of “green” construction methods that helped the team pursue LEED certification. The costs were less than one-half of one percent of the $545 million stadium. The stadium’s operational efficiencies, a result of the LEED-inspired innovations, will more than repay those costs, team officials said.

The stadium was built on a reclaimed brownfield, more than 70 percent of the construction waste was recycled or diverted from landfills, and more than 30 percent of installed materials are made from recycled content. Energy and water conservation features in the stadium, and broad use of locally sourced building materials also contributed to constructing the greenest professional sports stadium in the United States.