Trainee Complex Upgrade/Dining Facility

Contract Amount: $50,852,581

LEED Certification: Silver

Contract Duration: September 2009 – January 2012

Gross SF: 56,000 (each Dining Facility, total of two)
24,700 (each Trainee Complex, total of three)

The scope of this contract consisted of the renovation of three exiting dormitories as well as the new construction of two new dining facilities. The two new single story buildings were designed and constructed to prepare and serve food in a seated dining area. The seated dining area can also serve as a gathering place for group activities. The 56,000 SF facilities were intended to be similar to a college cafeteria facility in the private sector.

Designed to seat 1,088 people the surfaces were selected to allow for low maintenance and easily cleaned room finishes that are commercially standard for the facility type. The building design incorporated many acoustic features to allow for a comfortable dining environment including sound insulation in walls and floor/ceiling assemblies. Aside from all the attributes associated with a commercial kitchen the Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) for the dining facilities were a Hybrid-Geothermal Heat Pump System (H-GHP). The H-GHP system was designed to extract solar heat stored in the upper layers of the earth to provide heat to the building, or, conversely, reject building heat to the earth (cooling the building). The H-GPH systems were comprised of a series of 200-foot closed-loop vertical ground heat exchangers (well holes) made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) piping and a high efficiency induced draft cooling tower placed on grade. The cooling tower will be piped to a heat exchanger placed in the mechanical room.

A far less expensive alternative to a structurally heavy solar water heating system is harvesting heat from the high temperature wastewater discharged from the sculleries (kitchen was areas). Rather than waste the heat, it was collecting and piped to a double–walled heat exchanger located in a collection bin where the waste water preheats the incoming domestic water for hot water applications. Additional heat was harvested from the geothermal system before the system water leaves the building for the geothermal well field. The system water enters a water-to-water heat pump water heater where its heat is extracted and used to provide all of the heating energy for the domestic hot water system.

The remainder of the contract consisted of the renovation of a portion of three dormitories which at time of award housed dining halls in the central area of the first floor. The dining facilities were converted to classrooms and administrative spaces. Additionally the existing atrium spaces which were part of the open air circulation of the ground floor were converted to the restrooms.

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