Legg Mason Tower, Harbor East, Baltimore, MD - Mechanical Engineering by SVA

The Legg Mason Tower is a twenty-four (24) story high rise office building located in the Harbor East area of downtown Baltimore, Maryland. The building includes street level retail with office spaces designed to meet the requirements of financial services companies above. Total building area is approximately 615,000 gross square feet.

As their existing lease in the high rise building at Pratt and Light Streets downtown neared completion, Legg Mason made a decision to relocate their Corporate Headquarters to another site in the Baltimore Metropolitan area. Realizing the shortcomings of the existing building mechanical/electrical/plumbing (M/E/P) systems to meet their current and long term needs, Legg Mason engaged the services of Spears/Votta & Associates, Inc. to prepare an M/E/P system requirements document outlining their requirements for M/E/P infrastructure in a new facility. This document was utilized by Legg Mason in soliciting lease offers from developers throughout the central Maryland area.

Once the specific building was determined, SVA updated the M/E/P design documents to more specifically tailor it to that building, in preparation for final lease negotiations. Among the requirements included in the document were:

Seven (7) watts per square foot of 120 volt plug power available at workstations throughout all floors.

Maximum 225 square foot per ton of HVAC cooling.
Multiple HVAC units feeding into a common duct loop on each floor to provide some level of redundancy should an individual HVAC unit fail.
A low level (4" high) raised flooring system to facilitate moves, adds and changes to power and communication services to systems furniture and office areas.
Availability of emergency power for critical tenant loads.
Lighting suitable for multiple monitor workstations as well as for general office use.

Throughout the final lease negotiations, SVA provided consultation services to Legg Mason to assist in interpreting and achieving the required M/E/P infrastructure and tenant fit-out for their new facility.

During the design and construction of both the building core/shell as well as Legg Mason tenant spaces, SVA provided peer review services to ensure that the infrastructure requirements stated in the lease document were incorporated into the design. SVA also provided construction observation services to assure that Legg Mason's infrastructure goals were met.

Since completion of the building construction, SVA has provided M/E/P design/engineering services to improve the operation of the building's hot water heating system, improve the heating hot water pumping/piping systems and HVAC control systems. In addition, numerous fit-outs for various tenants throughout the building on non-Legg Mason occupied floors, including the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and the Under Armour flagship retail store. In addition, SVA continues to provide consultation to the building Owner/Manager for building operation and maintenance matters.

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing Engineers