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

Spears/Votta & Associates, Inc. (SVA) was the lead consultant and our team provided complete Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing (M/E/P), Architectural and Structural engineering services for construction of a new Data Center to replace the existing data center for this software developer located in downtown Towson, Maryland. The new Data Center will be located on the second floor of an existing ten (10) story office/mixed use building. The Data Center footprint is 4,300 square feet with space for 150 data racks. An adjacent 700 square foot utility room provides cooling and power for the data center and a 1,000 square foot space located beneath a ramp to the adjacent parking garage provides the location for standby generators and main power services.

The Data Center is located on the second floor of a ten (10) story office building. The space was originally designed for restaurant/retail use and provides a clear height to underside of existing structure of 17’-0” Data Center perimeter walls are designed utilizing high impact drywall to provide security for the Data Center. Man traps with biometric card readers are provided at each Data Center entrance to ensure security.

Data Center cooling includes self contained direct expansion type ceiling mounted Environmental Control Units for general space temperature maintenance, along with overhead Liebert XDO extreme density cooling units for the data racks. R134a refrigerant is supplied to the extreme density cooling units located in the aisles between computer racks via three (3) glycol chillers located in the Utility Space adjacent to the Data Center. Two (2) 10 fan dry coolers are located on the roof of the ten (10) story office building for heat rejection. General space cooling units reject heat via sidewall louvers in the exterior walls. Total cooling capacity is 52.5 tons for the ambient units and 150 tons for the extreme density rack cooling units. Cooling is designed to provide N+1 redundancy throughout the system.

Data Center fire protection includes complete smoke detection, with a pre-action sprinkler system. The fire alarm system is designed for the future addition of a clean agent fire suppression system such as FM-200 or Sapphire.

Electric power is supplied via a 2,000 ampere feed from the building main switchboard. A modular generator arrangement is provided with one (1) 600 kW/750 kVA modular generator installed at initial construction with space and rough-in for a second 600 kW/750 kVA modular generator unit to be added alongside. The future generator will provide paralleled operation with the existing unit when installed. A 4,000 gallon double wall 3 hour fire rated above ground fuel oil storage tank provides a 48 hour fuel supply for the generator system. An exterior mounted portable generator connection provides for a second source of power in case of major maintenance to or failure of the generator system. Generator(s) are operated and controlled via an Automatic Transfer Switch in the generator room. Power in the Data Center is distributed from a main-tie-main configured 2,000 ampere double-ended switchboard with manually operated tie breaker with Kirk-key interlock system. Manual transfer switches at each end of the switchboard allow feed from either the building utility power source, the on-site modular generator system or from the portable generator connection. Twin 550 kVA modular UPS systems are provided. Each UPS system will operate in an N+1 configuration until power requirements exceed 275 KVA. Power is distributed throughout the Data Center to panelboards which maintain an A/B distribution system throughout. Each data rack is supplied from both an A and B panelboard. A dual level system of cable trays is provided above the racks throughout the Data Center with the upper level serving data cabling and the lower level serving branch circuits run in type MC cable. Receptacles are mounted to the bottom of the cable tray system to serve each computer rack. Power to the HVAC equipment maintains the A/B power distribution arrangement with automatic transfer switches ahead of each HVAC distribution panel to automatically switch to a live bus in case of failure of any one (1) power source. Total connected power load, including future rack equipment, is 900 kVA, with 25% spare capacity provided throughout the system.

VIPS Data Center Statistics

20,400’ of conduit (3.86 miles) – ViPS to Hunt Valley
140,000’ of wire (26.5 miles) – ViPS to Shrewsbury, PA
1,800’ of cable tray (1/3 mile) – ViPS to Towsontowne Center Mall
52 electrical panels
6 transformers
204 light fixtures
340 wiring devices
60 fire alarm devices
5 Automatic Transfer Switches