Bigger, brighter daylighting in Byerly's supermarket

Byerly’s is an upscale supermarket chain with locations in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas  owned by Lund Food Holdings, Inc.

When the company decided to open a new store on France Avenue in Edina, Minn., CEO Tres Lund directed the architecture team to incorporate daylighting for a more sustainable design. While he was not a fan of traditional skylights, he was intrigued by other daylighting technologies like Solatube® Daylighting Systems.

“We provided the benefit of natural light throughout the interior while minimizing glare and solar heat gain.”

Jason Stiefel, Shea Design

Solution: The project team knew their client desired more natural light, but wanted it to be diffused across large areas of the store. Byerly’s also wanted it to integrate smoothly with the electric lighting. While the client was familiar with the Solatube SolaMaster® Series 750 DS product line, they were most excited to hear there was a larger diameter option available with the new high-output Solatube SkyVault® Series.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see that the SkyVault unit brought in much more light and was effective in diffusing it evenly across the space,” said Jason Stiefel, project architect with Shea Design and one of the key team members.

The project used 37 SkyVault Series M74 DS Core Units, installed in the roof throughout the store and integrated with LED lighting for night use. The Solatube M74 DS units and LEDs were paired together for maximum long-term lighting cost reduction.

“We have been very happy with the decision to include Solatube products and have been quite impressed with how they helped us obtain a very efficient lighting design for the whole store,” said Lund Food Holdings, Inc. Senior Project Manager Mike Edgett. “We also look forward to more projects where we can duplicate this look and feel.”

Daylighting supplements traditional LEDs

The Solatube units provided another advantage the construction team hadn’t expected. “We were able to almost eliminate the need for ‘temporary construction lighting’ during the construction phases of the project,” said Edgett. “The addition of the Solatube systems provided ample lighting levels for our construction crews to build out the interior finishes, as well as allow our equipment installation crews to fit out the store before the permanent lighting was installed. The permanent lighting ended up being a very late delivery item and we were still able to complete the project on time without the need for temporary lighting.”

Additional project team members included Paul Holmes, vice president/principal of Pope Architects and Tom Gilbertson, owner of Designer Specialty Products, the Solatube Certified Commercial Distributor that installed the SkyVault units.

The Solatube M74 DS units were mounted on the built-up roof using wood curbs supplied by Gilbertson’s team. The store opened on schedule in September 2014.

“The store really does look great and your product is working well,” said Holmes in a note to Designer Specialty Products after the installation. “I like the look and functionality in the retail environment. We are looking forward to working with you in the future!”

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