John Upton/The Bay Citizen

A beam was hoisted Wednesday to the top of a "green" SFPUC headquarters building under construction near San Francisco City Hall

Environmentally friendly furniture and building features have pushed the cost of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's new headquarters $14 million over budget, city officials said Wednesday.

The structure is expected to be one of the nation’s greenest office buildings when it opens next year. But achieving that target has proven expensive. 

SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington said the SFPUC recently learned that it would need to spend $7 million on new furniture, pushing total costs up to $205 million.

The furniture is required in order for the building to receive a LEED Platinum rating — the highest level of environmental certification awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. The California Academy of Sciences’ museum is currently the only building in San Francisco with a LEED Platinum rating.

John Upton/The Bay Citizen

Mayor Ed Lee, left, and SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington watch a beam hoisted to the top of a new city building at 525 Golden Gate Ave.

Sewage that’s flushed down pipes in the 13-story building will be treated on site and reused in low-flow toilets and urinals. Sensors will track the movement of the sun so that shades can be automatically opened and closed. Wind turbines and solar panels incorporated in the design will generate renewable energy for lights, computers and elevators.

Such features are “going to be a standard for the future,” Mayor Ed Lee told reporters.

The building was budgeted at $191 million and is currently $3 million over budget. An additional $4 million will need to be spent moving staff into the new building from rented office space nearby and taking other steps to prepare the structure for occupants.

Energy conservation measures incorporated into the building will help bring down operating costs, according to the SFPUC.

Construction is being funded partly with debt. The agency also raised some of the money for the project through land sales. The debt will be repaid using revenues from water and electricity customers. Monthly debt repayments will be similar to the amount that the agency currently pays in rent for office space nearby.

“We didn’t want to increase rates,” Harrington said. “Ratepayers shouldn’t be paying more money for the building.”

The high costs associated with the building’s environmental credentials almost scuttled the effort several years ago, but the building was eventually approved after some proposed green features were removed from the plans, such as microfilm solar panels that would have been embedded in window sills.

“A couple of years ago I was at a green building conference, and I ran into Mayor Gavin Newsom and he said, ‘We are not going to build that building — we can’t afford to,’” Andy Ball, chief executive of Webcor, which is managing construction of the building, told reporters Wednesday. “I said, ‘Mayor, you can’t afford not to. This building will be an example of what all cities should build.’”

The SFPUC plans to move into the building next summer.