The humble facade of two 140-year-old storefronts in downtown Minneapolis conceals a building on the cutting edge of clean energy technology.

The McKnight Foundation's new headquarters on Washington Avenue is a fully decarbonized, 45,000-square-foot building. The Minnesota-based nonprofit is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the country and provides millions of dollars in grants for environmental initiatives each year. When the foundation moved into a new headquarters this summer, it committed to a major retrofit.

"It allows us to embody our mission," McKnight Foundation President Tonya Allen told Sahan Journal.

It may be the first existing building in Minnesota to operate without natural gas, according to Greiner Construction, a Minneapolis-based firm that worked on the

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