Cub Foods - Phalen

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The Cub Foods Phalen store, located in St. Paul, is the first Minnesota grocery store to achieve LEED Gold 2.2 certification.  The 62,900 square foot grounds-up project engaged all Store Design Services departments and employed the latest advancements in sustainable supermarket design.

"The challenge for us as a design team was to deliver Cub its most energy-efficient store to date," explained Store Design Services lead architect Bryan Slattery.  "We had to significantly reduce our carbon footprint, while keeping the Cub brand intact from an aesthetic and operational standpoint, and to do all of this in the most cost-effective manner possible."

Lighting costs at Cub Phalen are 35% lower than comparable stores, due in part to its 44 skylights that use a solar-powered GPS system to track and redirect sunlight as needed.  It also features the first supermarket parking lot in Minnesota to be illuminated using only LED lights.  The store's maintenance-free floor eliminates the need for harsh chemicals when cleaning, and its landscape irrigation system uses 50% less water than typical systems.

The Store Design Services equipment team employed a secondary-loop refrigeration system at Cub Phalen that circulates glycol out to the sales floor in order to cool the store's refrigerated cases. This cuts the use of R-404a refrigerant by more than half, and dramatically decreases leak rates compared to typical refrigeration systems.  In fact, the EPA awarded Cub Phalen with GreenChill Gold certification, which recognizes environmentally-friendly refrigeration technology.

To further reduce energy costs, Equipment Services installed LED lights in all walk-in and reach-in refrigerated cases, as these lights produce very little heat in the cases.  In Cub Phalen's back room, heat generated from refrigeration is reclaimed and used to heat water for store use.