PIERRE — The law requires all new state building projects to pursue energy efficiency, but the upcoming renovation of Capitol Lake Plaza is going above and beyond.

When the building overhaul begins this December, it won’t only receive high-efficiency lighting, low-flow bathroom fixtures and a geothermal heat pump heating and cooling system, it also will produce energy of its own, with solar panels and wind turbines on the roof.

“We will include a wind turbine on top of the building as well as solar energy generation on the roof, generating about 25 percent of the building’s load,” said Mike Mueller, sustainable government coordinator for the state Bureau of Administration.

Courtesy graphic This architect’s rendering shows planned solar panels and wind turbines on the roof of Capitol Lake Plaza. A renovation state officials hope will reduce the building’s energy usage by 50 percent is scheduled to begin in December with an estimated completion in summer 2010. Advertisement

“Overall, with all of these efficiency measures, we hope to achieve a 50 percent energy savings for the building. That will greatly decrease our costs for running the building in the future.”

The renovation has been planned since Capitol Lake Plaza was purchased by the state two years ago for $1.5 million. In addition to making the building more efficient, the project also will

revamp the building’s vacant third floor.

When the $2.57 million project is complete late next summer, the South Dakota Lottery office will move from the St. Charles — where it now occupies two floors — to Capitol Lake Plaza.

Current offices of the Department of Tourism and State Development on the building’s first two floors will remain in place during the project, said Steve Stoneback, deputy commissioner for the Bureau of Administration.

“There may be some small amount of disruption on the lower level, but the folks won’t be vacating the lower level where tourism and state development is,” Stoneback said.

Future renovation projects on Capitol Lake Plaza may involve more disruption to the lower levels, but those projects are not yet planned, Mueller said.

The construction on Capitol Lake Plaza continues a game of musical chairs, with state employees shifting around to make room for renovations. Employees of the Department of Game, Fish and Parks recently vacated Capitol Lake Plaza, where they worked during renovations in the Foss Building. Department of Education employees currently in the Kneip Building are scheduled to move to the MacKay Library building after the completion of another project in 2010. That space in the Kneip Building could hold tourism officials who moved out of Capitol Lake Plaza for work on the building’s lower floors.

“When it comes to moving people in and out of those spaces as the space is renovated, it’s kind of a Rubik’s Cube,” Mueller said. “Each piece affects everything else. So as we get closer to that point, we will have developed those plans as to where people will move as the first floor of Capitol Lake Plaza is renovated.”

The Capitol Lake Plaza project has as its goal achieving silver certification by the national Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building rating system, Mueller said.

The projects will involve some discomfort for state employees in Capitol Lake Plaza, Mueller said, but he said the state will try to make the process as seamless as possible.

“It’s hard to accomplish these renovation projects and move people around offices without interruption, but we try to minimzie the interruption that renovation causes,” he said. “It’s difficult to do when you’re renovating entire floors of buildings.”