Facts and Figures Related to the NSRRC

“The mechanical number is a big chunk and that is expected for any building of this nature,” says Greg Lattig, senior principal, architect, and lab planner with The Clark Enersen Partners. “The swine facility is an efficient building with a complete penthouse interstitial floor.”

The facility encompasses 25,623 gsf with a net-to-gross ratio of 42.1 percent. The first floor includes 14,936 gsf with a net-to-gross ratio of 72.3 percent. The construction cost per gsf was $228.61, which Lattig describes as the “steal of the century.” The cost per nsf was $542.48.

“The project was bid in the summer of 2004. Depending on your locale, you would need to add an adjustment factor to the cost per gsf,” adds Lattig. “If the project is in Columbia, Missouri, like the swine center, we would add at least 15 percent to make the cost per gsf between $260 and $270 today.”

The Clark Enersen Partners had compiled a list of assumptions prior to starting the construction of the NSRRC. The assumptions give a range of where expected construction costs might fall. For example, hard construction was expected to require between 50 and 70 percent of the total project dollars, and the actual number fell within the range at 64 percent. All of the actual costs were within the assumptions with site development coming in at 11 percent; design and bidding costs, nine percent; chiller plant costs, three percent; owner’s project contingency, four percent; project and construction management, three percent; and other costs, also three percent.

“Nine percent for the design fees for the architects was not enough, though,” says Lattig. “I believe 12 percent would have been a better number for this facility.”

The HVAC demand at the swine facility for peak cooling is 232 tons with the heat recovery system, which is 36 tons less than systems without heat recovery. The savings due to the heat recovery system for peak heating is 1,596 pounds per hour.

“We were able to pay for the energy recovery system on the first cost alone,” says Shawn Diederich, principal and lead mechanical engineer for The Clark Enersen Partners. “The project tied into campus chilled water and steam. Typically, there is a cost per ton to tie into that system, so we were able to pay for the energy recovery system by reducing it by 36 tons and realizing that savings. The energy recovery system will reduce operational costs over the life of the facility and, in turn, give the users more available money for other things.”

The annual energy costs for the NSRRC are $316,781 or $12.36 per gsf with chilled water requiring the most expense at $117,392. The energy demand for a normal electrical load is 394,112 watts, while the requirement for an emergency electrical load is 310,947 watts.

T.C.

Fig. 1

Redundancy

The NSRRC has two air handlers, each capable of handling 75 percent of the peak load. They normally run together at a reduced speed to handle the full building load. If one fails, the other can maintain the appropriate pressurization. (Photo courtesy of The Clark Enersen Partners.)