Construction of the new IBEW Local 712 Union Hall didn’t begin with an empty site. It began in the middle of a functioning one.
For more than a century, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 712 has trained and supplied skilled electricians to contractors throughout Beaver, Crawford, Lawrence, and Mercer counties. Founded in 1914, the union represents more than 450 members whose work spans residential, commercial, and industrial projects, supported by a five-year apprenticeship program that combines hands-on field experience with extensive classroom instruction in everything from electrical theory and safety practices to emerging technologies.
Its Union Hall and Training Center had been a cornerstone of the Beaver community for generations, standing among the modest homes and tree-lined streets of Sassafras Lane since the 1960’s. But the needs of a modern electrical workforce had outgrown the building’s capabilities and replacing it would require an unusual level of precision.
Following a master planning process in the late 2010s, Local 712 determined to first complete a new apprenticeship training center in New Castle, allowing attention to turn fully to Beaver. There, the new Union Hall would be built on the same site as its predecessor, which had to remain operational while its successor rose beside it. Utilities had to stay live. Members continued passing through its doors. And the steady rhythm of life on Sassafras Lane was not to be disturbed. Yet crews still had to drill geothermal wells hundreds of feet into the earth, run new service lines, and construct a 20,000-square-foot facility that would ultimately take its place.
Completed in 2025, the two-story, 20,000 square-foot LEED-certified facility fully supports the IBEW’s daily operations while showcasing the dedication to craft that forms the heart of the organization. Constructed entirely by local union labor using American-made materials, the new hall includes a 150-seat membership space, offices, conference rooms, and community-accessible areas.
Priority one was fitting in. “They didn’t want to see any mechanical units on the roof or have to service units on a roof. They wanted the building to fit in with the neighborhood,” said Tricia Monaco, an architect at DRAW Collective. Making that happen required careful coordination between Monaco and her partner, senior architectural designer Randy Riggins.
“That was a design challenge to get that to come together,” said Riggins. “There was a lot of things mechanically that we had to work around to make the building look as elaborate, as aesthetically pleasing.”
Instead of presenting a single, uninterrupted façade capped by a flat commercial parapet, the building is composed as a series of distinct volumes, each defined by its own height and roofline. Sloped standing seam metal roofs with measured overhangs and varied elevations replace the typical flat edge, giving the structure a profile more commonly associated with residential architecture. Where equipment was unavoidable, such as limited chiller units, it was screened and integrated into the roof form so as not to be visible from the surrounding homes.
Priority two was minimizing the impact of construction and demolition on the nearby families. “We kept the time frames tight as far as what the noise ordinances were and making sure that everyone was adhering to those,” said John Pappas, president at Eckles Construction Services, who served as the project’s construction manager.
“The contractors were all good at letting us know what they had coming up so that we kept people in the community informed on what was happening and what the next phase of things were going to be.”
The community certainly had enough on its mind at the time. This was a covid project, conceived pre-pandemic, disrupted by it, then built through it. The last thing the teams wanted to do was add stress to the neighborhood during an already chaotic time. This care was reciprocated and appreciated by the residents.
“One of the guys next door would pretty much every day come and have coffee with the crews on site,” laughed Pappas. “He’d bring them over snacks and stuff like that throughout the day.”
Interestingly, all parties agreed that while the pandemic created headaches, the business of construction had already adapted to its peculiar constraints.
“There were definitely supply chain strains that were holding things, but I think as contractors, it was just another footnote to make the project challenging,” said Geoff Measel, project manager at E&G Development, who served as the build’s general contractor.
“The real strain was logistics and a tight space. It was a sequencing nightmare. I don’t say nightmare lightly—but it was one of the hardest parts of this job. We were maintaining utilities to the existing building while running all the new systems to the new building. And some of them were crossing over each other. You’re building a full brand-new building, drilling geothermal wells, tying in site utilities while at the same time keeping the old building operational. We had to move them into the new building, tear the old one down, and then finish the site work. That coordination was extremely challenging.”
The complexity peaked underground. New utilities needed routing while existing lines stayed operational. Some systems crossed paths while others required temporary tie-ins before permanent ones could be established. And the chaos didn’t end when the new building was completed. Once occupants transitioned into the new hall, the old building needed demolishing, including a basement that left a gaping void in the center of future parking. Temporary parking had to be created and then final utilities tied in before grades could be reset. Only then was the project stitched back together as if it had always been a single cohesive plan.
Meanwhile, the building was designed from its inception to be carbon neutral and incorporated 20 geothermal wells as the backbone of its energy strategy. Each well extends roughly 400 to 500 feet below grade, grouped into circuits that connect back to a central manifold inside the building.
Designing and installing the geothermal field required careful coordination and engineering. Soil conditions were analyzed to determine heat transfer capacity, which informed both the depth and number of wells required. On the tight site, the well field had to be carefully shoehorned into the overall site plan and sequenced alongside the chaotic implementation of utilities, building construction, and eventual demolition of the existing structure.
Beyond geothermal, the building incorporates several additional strategies to reduce environmental impact and improve long-term performance. Energy-efficient glazing was used in curtain wall systems to minimize heat gain and loss, while all lighting throughout the building is LED-based to reduce electrical demand.
Site design also played a role in sustainability: stormwater is captured and managed through an integrated rainwater collection system that gathers runoff from the parking areas and directs it into a central feature element. Durable, low-maintenance materials such as terrazzo flooring were selected for longevity, reducing lifecycle replacement costs and waste.
The final challenge was making the building reflect the Union’s work in a visible and instructional way. That directive shifted the architectural approach from concealment to exposure; instead of hiding infrastructure, the building would display it.
“We had never designed a building where they really focused on all the mechanical,” said Monaco. “Everything was going to be exposed, the bones of the building would be on display. So, this mechanical space was a showpiece.”
That showpiece is on the ground floor, centered beneath the towering IBEW lettering that anchors the lobby, within a glass-enclosed electrical room glowing from behind the stone-clad feature wall. Inside is the building’s main electrical equipment. Panels, conduit runs, and organized infrastructure all had to be aesthetically organized.
Every conduit run had to be carefully routed, every tray aligned, every junction placed with intention. The team worked closely with the trades to choreograph what would be seen and what needed subtle concealment. A programmable LED lighting saturates the space in a deep red, washing evenly across the equipment and reflecting off the glass to create a uniform glow whose color can be changed for holidays and causes like Breast Cancer Awareness month.
Lighting is the core identity of the building’s owner and occupant. Tricia Monaco described it as central to the design process. Temperature, intensity, and placement all influence how a space feels, both inside and out.
“I personally feel that lighting really sells our spaces and our designs, and lighting is actually the most important part of our designs. We didn’t want you to really see the light, we wanted it to glow.”
Rather than flooding the site with tall, high-intensity poles, fixtures are spaced deliberately and kept at modest heights, providing clear visibility without casting excessive glare. Landscape elements reinforce this approach. Plantings, grade changes, and the recessed drainage corridor create natural buffers absorbing and softening light before it can travel outward.
In front of the building, an illuminated pedestrian bridge becomes the primary visual feature, but even here the light is contained within the railings and directed downward onto the walking surface, allowing it to guide movement safely without projecting brightness into the surrounding neighborhood.
On the building itself, illumination reveals form rather than overwhelm it. Light is concentrated at entry points, beneath overhangs, and within recessed façade elements, where it highlights material texture and depth while remaining shielded from direct view at a distance. Wall-mounted fixtures cast controlled vertical washes that stop at the surface instead of spilling outward, and interior light is moderated by the depth of window openings and overhangs.
This attention to detail peaks in the lobby, where the lighting is layered like a composition. A circular ring overhead sets the tone. It’s scaled to the building’s height and reads as a band of energy racing around the ceiling. The wood panel’s horizontal reveals wash soft lighting across their surface creating rhythm and shadow. But the real kicker comes from the floor. The terrazzo doesn’t mirror; it diffuses. That ring becomes a softened halo. The red glow of the exposed electric room reflects warmly off the floor while the IBEW seal looks as if it’s rising from within the surface.
The building itself pulls off the same quiet trick. In the end, the IBEW Hall doesn’t resemble a commercial intrusion at all. It sits comfortably on its lot like a neighborhood church, glowing with the familiar aura of small-town life. Its broad roofline and measured height align with the horizon of nearby homes, keeping it in scale with brick houses, mature trees, and quiet residential streets.
Just blocks from Main Street, within sight of the Ohio River and the layered ridgelines beyond, the building feels rooted in Beaver’s landscape. Lawns, sidewalks, and calm residential blocks frame it on all sides, and the architecture responds with restraint. It belongs to the trades that built it and equally to the neighborhood that lives beside it.
