The City of Tucson's new Southeast Service Center houses the Ward Four (IV) offices, community services office, and a city collections office/counter.

This is the first of the new City of Tucson buildings which are to be constructed according to the Tucson-Pima County Sustainable Energy Standard. The standard requires that: "The calculated target annual energy consumption of the building shell and mechanical system and domestic hot water heating shall be less than 50% of the energy required by the present Tucson/Pima County Model Code Energy (CABO Model Energy Code, 1995 Edition)."

The Southeast Service Center features:

• Mass walls on the east and west with R-19 insulation and no windows
• A R-38 roof system with reflective white coating
• North and south windows feature thermal break assemblies with R-3 low-E glass systems (see photo 2)
• South overhang set to optimize summer shading and winter passive solar heating (see photo 1)
• Lighting systems feature dimming ballast for optimum daylighting in exterior office and daylighting into the interior through partitions with windows up high on walls with solar sun tubes (see photo 3)
• Motion and light level sensors for conference rooms and restrooms
• High-efficiency air-conditioning system (SEER 13) for individual zones in the building
• Active grid-connected photovoltaic panels (see photo 4)
• Waterless urinals
• Instantaneous water heating in lavatories
• Water harvesting of rain water

Tucson has almost completed retrofits under the EPA's Green Lights program and now is implementing the EPA's Energy Star Building Program. The City has adopted the Sustainable Energy Standard as the building guide for all new, remodeled or expanded City facilities unless inappropriate or excessively costly.