T. Rowe Price Corporate Campus, Owings Mills - SVA Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing Engineers

Spears/Votta & Associates, Inc. (SVA) was the prime consultant for this project and assembled a team of professionals to perform the design, including Architect, Structural Engineer and Civil Engineer.

The existing facility, constructed in two (2) previous phases between 2000 and 2006, included two (2) data rooms with raised floor and rack or cage space for lease to various tenants for data co-location. Each existing room provides Data Center grade HVAC and UPS power backed up by a diesel fired generator. Under the previous phases, space for Data Rooms 3 and 4 had been constructed to a shell level with walls and in the case of Data Room 3, dropped ceiling and raised floor. Space was also constructed for future UPS equipment and generators to serve the future Data Rooms.

At the beginning of the project, SVA reviewed the previous phase Basis of Design document. SVA met with the Owner and their Program Manager to enhance the design concepts as well as to improve upon several issues which had developed with the previous design. Design capacity was reviewed with regard to power and HVAC and what quantity of average rack power could be reasonably/economically accommodated, both from an electric service/generator/UPS standpoint as well as the ability to adequately cool equipment mounted in the racks without implementing an extreme density cooling solution. It was decided early in the project that extreme density cooling would not be pursued at this time. Through discussions with the Owner, it was determined that the optimum design would be based on a power load of 4.0 kW per data rack.

HVAC for Data Rooms 3 and 4 is provided by downflow computer room air conditioning units with DX cooling. During the preliminary design phase, other cooling options including glycol with rooftop mounted dry coolers were considered in order to take advantage of "free cooling;" however, it was determined that the payback for this was insufficient to justify the additional equipment cost. HVAC for the new UPS room utilizes upflow Computer Room Air Conditioning units with DX cooling similar to those utilized in Data Rooms 1and 2. Ventilation was provided for up to three (3) additional 1.5 megawatt generators (one present, two future) in the generator room.

Power distribution design was based on a modular design concept throughout. The ultimate fitout of the facility will include a double-ended main-tie-main drawout switchgear with generator paralleling facilities and two (2) 5,000 ampere main circuit breakers, each served by a separate BGE transformer. Each BGE transformer will be fed from separate BGE feeders from diverse locations via diverse routes. Three (3) additional 1.5 megawatt 480/277 volt, 3 phase, 4 wire diesel fired generators and up to eight (8) modular UPS systems paralleled in groups of four (4) were designed for future installation as loads increase. Each of these devices will be able to be installed individually, with single feeder connection to existing switchgear. Each of the modular UPS systems is rated at 550 kVA, which is provided by three (3) 275 kVA UPS modules which provides N+1 redundancy within each unit.

The existing electric service will remain to serve the previously renovated areas of the building. Each main circuit breaker generator output circuit breaker, each paralleling switchgear input circuit breaker and each UPS system is outfitted with a shunt trip coil. Break glass type emergency shutdown stations are provided at the exterior exit door from each main electric room to allow complete power shutdown of the facility by emergency personnel.

A complete electronic power monitoring system is included throughout the power distribution system. This will allow the Owner to monitor power use and add UPS systems and generators as their loads increase.

The existing building Delta Monitoring and Control System was expanded to serve the areas fitout under this project, as were the existing building security, intrusion detection, access control and video monitoring systems. The security system was expanded to provide protection for rooftop mounted equipment with fence motion detection and video monitoring cameras provided on a new fence installed around the raised rooftop equipment platform.

Very Early Smoke Detection Array (VESDA) systems were provided for each of the Data and UPS Rooms, along with a data center grade grounding system. The existing building fire alarm system, which had been constructed in multiple phases, and did not work properly together, was replaced throughout with a unified fire alarm system, to serve the entire facility. The fire alarm system includes complete smoke detection in the Data and UPS Rooms. The existing dry pipe pre-action sprinkler system was modified to suit the renovations under this project.