Building II started as site retaining walls only for two new building additions adjacent to the current site and then evolved into the entire Building 2 facility including data center ft up complete in 7.5 months. This tilt-wall and precast structure houses a single tenant (Fortune 100 client) with 18 MW of critical load, totaling 188,617 SF. With a 7.5 month schedule, this ground-up project was completed on time from start to a fully commissioned data center with 4 months of around-the-clock construction. To reduce noise to an adjacent residential neighborhood and two separate utility yards, 30’ tall sound barrier walls were installed on the entire west side of the project site. These walls consisted of poured-in-place concrete, tilt panels and precast at various areas of the building to remain within the sound ordinance levels.
The conversion of an existing Class A office space into a new 5,000 SF data center was achieved in three short months in a fully occupied building without incident or disruption of service to occupants. The supporting infrastructure areas are protected by an Inergen fire suppression system as well as a city required, redundant fail safe pre-action system. The requirement for standalone and uninterrupted operation of servers required that new dedicated infrastructure be added, including new electrical service, UPS, standalone Chilled Water Cooling System with air cooled chillers and an emergency generator for back-up power. A new service yard (tilt-wall enclosure) was constructed in the adjacent parking lot for securing the generator and cooling tower from outside interference or tampering.
This facility is part of Comdisco’s international network of fully-equipped alternate sites, used by customers to recover their enterprise computer systems and data in the event of a service disruption or natural disaster. Comdisco is a leading provider of continuity services, and offers a complete suite of information technology services including managed network services and IT control and predictability solutions.
Choate Construction Company has completed numerous projects for Network Appliance, the network storage company based in California, for a total of 422,000 SF.
Network Appliance Building 1
This 165,000-SF cold shell building was converted to a warm shell, followed by the completion of 125,000 SF of interior space. Interior environments included approximately 40,000 SF of R&D laboratory, training facilities, an executive briefing center as well as open office/systems furniture plan for global support personnel.
Network Appliance RTP Building 2
The next phase of expansion involves the conversion of a cold shell office building to a warm shell state, fitting out approximately 150,000 SF to accommodate customer support, product development, software development and laboratory/data center business unit expansion needs.
Network Appliance Dedicated Lab – RTP Building 4
This dedicated lab facility contains over 2,100 racks of data equipment, with the lab environment designed at over 650 watts per square foot. Over 11,000 tons of cooling capacity is delivered by four (4) 2,800 ton centrifugal chillers served by 8 cooling towers. Chilled water runs through the coils of eighty (80) 45,000 CFM air handling units which deliver a collective 3.6 million CFM to the laboratory environment. The structural steel frame is clad in architectural metal panels with weather-proof relief air louvers surrounding almost the entire 3rd level, dedicated solely to the air handling equipment and half of the electrical distribution gear.
Concord EFS, acquired by First Data, provided ATM, credit card, and payroll pressing services. The 107,000-SF facility provided full-time backup for the Wilmington, Delaware office, featuring 32,000 SF of raised flooring with 2-foot deep access flooring cable and 75,000 SF of office area.
Located across from the Dobbins Air Field, special precautions were taken to reduce outside noise infiltration. Triple-glazed Trainer glass out of Chicago was used to achieve maximum noise reduction.
Redundant N+1 MEP systems increase reliability and ensure the building is always fully operating.
This 9,000-square-foot high tech data center, designed to house some 200 servers and operate as a centralized data hub for more than six Follett companies includes:
• Installation of overhead floor membrane
• Installation of raised access floor system
• Installation of N + 1 configuration for major mechanical and electrical infrastructure components
• Installation of dual fire suppression system which included gaseous system supplemented with pre-action, double interlocked, dry-pipe sprinkler system
• Installation of dedicated redundant AC electrical power service with a UPS system and 5,000 gallon back-up generator for 24×7 facility operation
• Installation of complex HVAC system comprising four 20-ton units
• 800A master switch board with automatic transfer switch (ATS) by-pass
• Hydrogen detection system with exhaust fan link
• Six (6) CRAC units (Liebert)
• Four (4) 150Kva UPS units with wet cell batteries
• Four (4) 400A PDU distribution cabinets
• Single tier cable ladder rack with Panduit cable management system
• Two (2) fiber hand holes for optional fiber service
• Tier 2 Data Center
The three-story, 170,982 sf NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) is a high-performance scientific computing in the atmospheric and related geosciences fields. The facility includes 16,000 sf of Administration space, 3,600 sf Network Operations Center, 2,300 sf of Mass Media Storage as well as a 100,00 sf Central Utility Plant.
Once full operation begins in the summer of 2012, the NWSC will continue to advance scientific discovery for the next several decades. The adaptive design and construction enables the facility to expand in accordance to the evolving nature of supercomputing technology.
The NWSC’s design takes full advantage of Cheyenne’s elevation and cool, dry climate by employing ambient air to cool the facility nearly year round. This will significantly reduce the facility’s energy use. The facility is estimated to be 90 percent more energy efficient than typical supercomputing centers and is on track to receive LEED Gold Certification. In addition, over 70 percent of the construction materials are reused onsite or recycled.
This 89,000 sf, five-story (107 feet) precast structure serves as the global headquarters for ProLogis. This facility offers employees a fitness center, outdoor walking path and a cafeteria. State-of-the-art conference facilities and technology were incorporated throughout the building. This project achieved LEED Certification.
Ahold Information Services (AIS), located on a twenty-two acre site, consists of a four story, 135,000 SF Class A corporate office building, a 65,000 SF, single story data center, and a 15,000 SF “streetscape” spine that adjoins the two facilities and contains a fitness center and a full service cafeteria with both public and private dining.
Once awarded Ahold, Choate played a very active role in the completion of the project design and final budget as well as begin the fast track process by commencing with sitework. It was our goal to manage the design so completion of the documents meshed with the current status of the construction and not cause any delays in the procurement of materials. With this approach, the entire project team was made aware of the construction schedule on a weekly basis and when scopes of work were required to be released. This enabled the Architects and Engineers to continue their design while at the same time being aware of what our staff in the field was going to need at any given date.
Due to the complexity and detail of the project, extreme attention had to be taken to maintain the schedule, provide a quality finished project and assure that the construction site was a safe working environment. No OSHA citations were ever received. The data center, including dual 4000 amp primary service transformers, each equipped with a Trans Voltient Surge Suppresser (TVSS), dual 2500 KVA (2000 KW) emergency generators and dual battery backup (1500 KVA), Uninterrupted Power Sources (UPS), twenty-eight Power Distribution Units (PDU’s), twenty-five self-contained Computer Room Air Condition Units (CRAC’s), and much more, was successfully completed due to the awareness Choate pays its projects.
IMC served as design-builder for he Comcast National Data Center. Services included site selection, land development approval, site work construction, complete shell, core, and partial fit-out. The three-building construction project included over 60,000 linear feet of underground PVC and more than 260,000 linear feet of computer cable.
IMC has built more than 40 projects nationwide for Comcast, including call centers, data centers, tech centers, and offices.