Federal Government Design | Fall 2023

Federal Government Design

Project Portfolio

About CMTA

CMTA was founded in 1968 and is recognized as a national leader in high performance, sustainable design within the engineering industry. Our firm has leveraged our expertise in high performance, energy-efficient design into a nationwide practice that includes consulting engineering, performance contracting and zero energy design, technology solutions, and commissioning services.

CMTA prides itself on its data-driven, performance-based design process. Performance-based design uses benchmarking of our projects’ real-world energy usage as a challenge to our engineers to continuously improve energy performance. CMTA’s first signature performance-based design project was Richardsville Elementary School, the nation’s first operational Zero Energy school. Since then, our Zero Energy projects have led our firm into the national spotlight.

Because we walk the talk, we are true partners vested in sharing our knowledge with our clients. Our corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and our Lexington, Kentucky offices are both zero energy buildings with perfect ENERGY STAR scores. And our CMTA Energy Solutions corporate office in Louisville is the first in the U.S. to operate as Zero Energy and achieve WELL Gold certification. CMTA strives to create strong relationships with building owners and managers while also focusing on the health and comfort of the people who live, work, and play in spaces we design.

Designing for Resiliency

Simply put, resilience in the built environment is the ability to recover from difficult conditions that have compromised essential utility/infrastructure services. That could mean recovering from a power outage, an earthquake, system failure, equipment failure, process interruption, etc. Different types of buildings and campuses require different levels of resiliency — think hospitals, research labs, data centers, industrial freezers, airports, defense facilities, and the like. For some facilities, resilience could mean recovering in a matter of days. Others must be completely fault-tolerant by design — a moment’s downtime is unacceptable due to significant cost, lost production, and life safety. It’s inconvenient if the power goes down for half a day at a general office, but it’s unthinkable that a critical care hospital or data center could suffer the same.

Keeping the life-saving equipment running, the lights on, and the servers online is the purpose of utility infrastructure generation and distribution systems. Our extensive experience encompasses the critical aspects of creating resilient utility infrastructure, including thoughtful planning, a design that addresses a facility’s current and future needs, quality construction, and ongoing attention through operations, maintenance, and training. With engaged facility stakeholders, an experienced multi-discipline design team, and diligent contractors and maintenance staff, utility infrastructure can be resilient to the appropriate level.

Codes & Standards for Resilient Design

Resilient design is regulated by codes to which certain facilities must comply and standards that guide the decision-making process. Understanding these codes is a critical element of the design process that is more challenging with integrated codes and standards.

One example includes ANSI/TIA-942, the standard for data center design. It identifies four ratings/tiers that define redundancy and fault tolerance levels for achieving reliable and available facilities. For example, a Rated-3/Tier 3 data center is “concurrently maintainable,” meaning servicing and replacement can be accomplished without affecting end-user capabilities. This means the equipment and systems serving the data center are redundant and have multiple distribution paths.

The Department of Defense uses the Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC), which governs design for military installations and includes extensive provisions for system resiliency due to the high security and sensitive nature of many spaces in military and defense facilities. The UFC includes specialized measures like Anti-Terrorism and Force Protection, Lightning and Static Electricity Protection Systems, Physical Security Measures for High-Risk personnel, and others that uniquely impact designs.

Coordinated Design

The resilience challenge increases when we apply the need for system protection from events like earthquakes, hurricanes, lightning, or explosions/serious impacts. This requires highly coordinated design between mechanical and electrical engineers like us and our structural engineering partners. Not only must MEP systems be resilient and survivable to maintain service and building operations, but other building infrastructure must also be resilient and survivable.

US Army National Guard KY, Boone Aviation Support Facility Frankfort, Kentucky

Federal

CMTA is led and staffed by engineers that have built their careers on complex building system design in many mission-critical facilities around the world. From Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to Yokota Air Base in Japan, our project history has demonstrated success with federal government building types for new projects, additions, renovations, repairs, and upgrades.

We thoroughly understand that the federal government emphasizes resilient design, security, energy reduction, and a reduced dependency on the utility grid — all areas where CMTA excels. We partner with large and small A/E firms across the country, bringing a robust portfolio of high-performance design that has proven to be a winning differentiator.

Randolph

This new zero energy facility replaces the original B wing of building 499 and provides new administrative space for the Air Force Personnel Center managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Fort Worth District.

CMTA was the engineer of record for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, lighting, communication, audio-visual, and technology design. All systems have been designed to exceed the requirements of the high-performance UFC 1-200-02.

CMTA leveraged our building science leadership approach to help the team find optimization opportunities. The results of this effort found significant structural improvements that strengthened the performance of the envelope while also reducing costs. In addition, the team continued to optimize the design to find additional savings opportunities, allowing the team to design a zero energy facility within the project budget. As a result, this is the first zero-energy building on Randolph AFB.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2021

Size: 68,000 SF

Cost: $32,800,000

Project Type: New Facility

Awards/Certifications:

Zero Energy

US Customs & Border Protection Quantum Park

Department of Homeland Security | Ashburn, Virginia

Due to the recent increased attention that has been placed on the security of the US border, Customs & Border Protection (CBP) has faced massive and rapid expansion. This project was executed to consolidate numerous business units to improve operational and spatial efficiency in a secure location.

The project includes approximately 390,000 SF of office space for the agency and over 50,000 SF of specialty spaces, including a wet lab, radio lab, emergency operations center, secure facilities, and IT spaces. The building is 100% backed up by standby power generation and mission-critical HVAC systems. It is designed for a high level of security, including physical security countermeasures and state-of-the-art electronic security systems.

Site security improvements include a new perimeter K-rated fence with secure access checkpoints, electronic video surveillance, and site lighting design.

In addition to the interior fit-out of the space, CMTA designed upgrades to the central plant systems, provided all new HVAC systems, and completed the shell design for a portion of the building that was previously only built to cold dark shell condition. The facility contains several energy-efficient technologies, including all LED lighting with daylight harvesting, high efficiency four pipe VAV HVAC systems, and an advanced DDC building automation controls platform.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2021

Size: 444,000 SF

Project Type: Renovation

Morganton Regional Readiness Center

North Carolina National Guard | Morganton, North Carolina

In 2017, the North Carolina National Guard received $23.33 million from the $2 billion Connect NC bond package to renovate the old Western Youth Institution for a National Guard training facility. The vision for the new regional training center is to provide quicker responses to state emergencies and improve readiness for military deployments.

During the planning phase, it was determined that it would cost more to renovate the 16-story existing detention center and bring it up to current building codes than demolishing it and building a new facility. The new center would also be more energy efficient than renovating the 1972 structure.

The new Morganton Regional Readiness Center consists of three buildings – a 66,000 SF regional readiness center, an 8,000 SF general purpose training bay, and a 4,000 SF unheated storage building. The readiness center design includes two connecting wings with an assembly hall, offices, meeting areas, locker rooms, a fitness area, classrooms, storage, and support areas. The site also includes a footprint for a future helipad and a solar power field.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2022

Size: 78,000 SF

Cost: $25,000,000

Project Type: New Facility

US Army National Guard Aviation Support Facility

US Army Corps of Engineers – Louisville

Boone National Guard, Kentucky

The Boone National Guard Aviation Support Facility is the most energy-efficient aviation hangar in the world, operating at 15 kBtu/ sf/yr. The project is zero energy-ready and easily achieved LEED Gold by earning all 19 points for EA Credit 1 — Energy Optimization. It also received an exemplary point and regional priority credit totaling 21 points. The project bid under budget, and the Kentucky National Guard was able to install an 80 kW photovoltaic (PV) system. The PV system is designed to offset 20% of the total building energy usage. The building infrastructure is in place to increase the PV system and allow for 100% energy offset.

A radiant slab heating system was used in the maintenance bays, with ground source heat pump water heaters for hot water generation. The 90°F hot water heating

temperature increased the heat pump efficiency by 20%.

The two-story administration and operation space is conditioned using an enhanced geothermal HVAC system with a dedicated outdoor air unit with energy recovery. A building pressurization test was included in the project requirements, and the maintenance bays passed at an air leakage of 0.19 cfm per square feet of building envelope.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2015

Size: 122,000 SF

Cost: $31,000,000

Project Type: Renovation & Addition

Awards/Certifications:

Zero Energy-Ready

LEED Gold

Zero Energy

Project Eero (NGA West)

US Army Corps of Engineers – Kansas City District St. Louis, Missouri

Project Eero (formerly known as NGA West) is a mega project for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri. The Project Eero campus consists of a variety of buildings, including the main operations building, parking garages, access control point, remote inspection facility, and a visitor control center – all totaling just over 1,760,000 SF.

Project Eero’s goal is to be a modern, flexible, adaptable, and collaborative facility supporting NGA’s evolving geospatialintelligence mission. They strive to offer open and innovative partnering spaces, advanced technology solutions, and a sustainable environment that serves the agency’s mission and employees for the next 40 years. This is a secure facility housing some of the country’s best and brightest from the intelligence community.

CMTA is proud to have been a part of this significant project by helping with zero energy consultation and energy modeling. Project Eero operating as a net zero energy complex by the fiscal year 2030 is a high priority for NGA, and CMTA helped the team discover the steps required to achieve such goals. CMTA analyzed the various available technologies and their application to this campus. We outlined an implementation strategy to aid the team in providing the necessary space, capacity, and systems in the buildings and on-site to accommodate renewable energy systems without having to remove or relocate significant infrastructure in the future.

Project at a Glance

Size: 1,760,000 SF

Cost: $750,000,000

Project Type: Renovation

Madigan Army Medical Center

US Army Corps of Engineers – Little Rock District

Joint Base Lewis-McChord | Tacoma, Washington

Madigan Army Medical Center is one of the largest Army hospitals in the world. The design team was tasked with replacing the emergency side electrical gear for the facility, including generators, electrical equipment, and transfer switches. It was critical that the facility remained fully operational during design and construction.

CMTA designed enhanced due diligence, which included metering all 32 transfer switches and a complete facility arc flash study. The project also required the relocation of the existing 40,000-gallon underground fuel storage tanks to facilitate future planned expansion. CMTA designed a new fuel delivery and storage system that offered 14 days of on-site storage. The most critical component of this project is the construction sequencing that allows the facility to stay operational.

The team designed a small bump-out addition to house the new generators so the existing generators could stay operational. Once the new generators are active, the old generators can be decommissioned, thus freeing up critical square footage within the existing facility to accommodate the new emergency gear. This leapfrog approach allows the facility to remain operational at all times and fully backed up with emergency protection.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2021

Size: 1,230,000 SF

Cost: $42,000,000

Project Type: Renovation

NASIC IPC III

US Army Corps of Engineers – Louisville District Wright Patterson Air Force Base | Dayton, Ohio

CMTA is providing expertise on high-performance HVAC systems and cost-effective mechanical design. After a comprehensive mechanical systems analysis our team proposed an active chilled Beam system selection that was not a typical commodity HVAC system and would provide significant energy use reduction.

An active chilled beam system provides the optimum combination of simplicity, energy performance, cost, and most importantly, substantially fewer operation interruptions due to maintenance. This was especially important since all five floors have restrictive spaces which creates challenges for uncleared maintenance staff. The design

ensured minimal maintenance requirements within secure spaces. The active chilled beam will use 40% less energy than UFC minimum.

CMTA energy experts provided the Government with the data and expertise needed to give them the confidence to select a system that was unique and forwardthinking and will have long-lasting positive results.

Project at a Glance

Size: 255,000 SF

Cost: $182,000,000

Project Type: Design-Bid-Build

Replace Line C and D with Natural Gas Boilers

US Army Corps of Engineers – Louisville District

Wright Patterson Air Force Base | Dayton, Ohio

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) operates centralized heat and hot water systems that utilize both natural gasfired and coal-fired boilers to serve both areas (Area A and B) of the base. These centralized heat plants are located at base facilities 20770, 31240 and 34019. Facility 31240 serves part of Area A through three distribution lines (A, C and D).

CMTA teamed with Woolpert to design a comprehensive solution to reduce energy loss study by converting the existing distribution systems to natural gas fired condensing boilers and steam generating boilers provided locally at each of the facility groups. The final designs were delivered on an aggressive schedule and within the budget.

Steam Line C

The existing distribution Line C provides heating to 14 facilities that support the missions of Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command (HQ AFMC), National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), Visiting Officer Quarters (VOQ) and 88th AB Wing (88 ABW).

Steam Line D

The existing distribution Line D provides heating to 24 facilities that support the critical missions at Wright Patterson AFB. The Line D project has scope challenges due to current funding and programming budgets do not align with the scope of the project. The current targeted construction cost limitation is $6,460,000 which is less than Line C although this project impacts more facilities. Woolpert & CMTA continue to work through these challenges to develop an optimum combination of solutions to meet the needs of the end user.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2020 (C) 2021 (D)

Size: 24 Locations

Cost: $12,300,000 (C) $6,460,000 (D)

Project Type: Renovation

DoDEA Barkley Elementary

US Army Corps of Engineers – Louisville District Fort Campbell, Kentucky

Barkley Elementary is a new, 141,139 SF school for 740 Kindergarten through 5th grade students. CMTA delivered a high performance facility for almost $30/SF less than the last Fort Campbell School. The school will save over $6 Million in energy savings over 20 years.

The building systems were designed to maximize efficiency and drastically reduce energy consumption within the construction budget. The heating and air conditioning is accomplished using an advanced geothermal heat pump system with demand controlled ventilation. The system utilizes variable speed heat pumps and distributed pumping strategies, maximizing efficiencies during part load conditions and minimizing connected and running pumping power requirements.

The building thermal envelope is designed as a high-performance system utilizing insulated concrete forms (ICFs). This allowed the HVAC systems to be designed with less

capacity due to the effectiveness of the insulation and mass of the wall structures, while minimizing air infiltration. The interior and exterior lighting systems utilize LED lamp sources to reduce the lighting power densities to less than 0.6 watts per SF thus reducing the required size of the HVAC system. Natural daylighting is incorporated into the classrooms to improve the quality of the instructional space.

An advanced metering system was specified for the building to allow for the measurement and verification of the total energy consumption. Following occupancy in 2017 the building has performed at a 26 EUI, which exceeds the UFC 1-200-02 making Barkley the highest performing DoDEA school in the world.

Project at a Glance

Size: 141,139 SF

Cost: $38,670,097

Project Type: Design-Bid-Build

Veterans Affairs CBOC

US Army Corps of Engineers – Louisville District Fort Knox, Kentucky

The new 18,093 SF outpatient clinic includes space for primary care, mental health, social work, telehealth, nutrition, and pharmacy consultation services for over 6,500 veterans in the region. The facility is located on a 4.1-acre site adjacent to the old Ireland Army Community Hospital and the new VA clinic. The site provides 112 additional parking spaces with new site utilities, lighting, and walkways.

The design team followed the requirements in the 35% Design-Build RFP package to generate 100% construction drawings, which included the complex task of deconflicting and ensuring compliance with multiple criteria to include: VA Design Guidance, USACE Louisville Military Design Guide, Ft Knox Installation Design Guide, and UFC’s required by the Military Health System.

CMTA challenged the initial building system design parameters listed in the RFP package for the benefit of the government; ensuring that the HVAC equipment was sized correctly and saving over $100,000 which was reinvested into other building improvements with a direct impact on the veteran experience. This facility is anticipated to exceed UFC 1-200-02 by utilizing 40% less energy than ASHRAE 90.1 2013.

Project at a Glance

Completion: 2020

Size: 18,093 SF

Cost: $8,755,435

Project Type: Design-Build

Wiping Solution Recycling Plant

US Department of Treasury

Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) | Washington, DC

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) produces currency on Intaglio water wipe presses. The term “water wipe” refers to the aqueous wiping solution used in removing ink from the printing plate’s surface. Wiping solution is mixed onsite, used at press, pretreated, and discharged to the sanitary sewer.

CMTA led the engineering design team to implement a new wiping solution recycling process enabling reuse of wiping solution at each press. This project included design and installation of an area housing new processes, ancillary wiping solution systems, and partial removal and demolition of existing wiping solution equipment and processes as required to install the new plant. CMTA provided mechanical and electrical design services, as well as site utility design services.

The project also entailed replacement of HVAC systems serving the entire “D” Wing as the location for the new wiping solution recycling plant, and involved construction of a new control room, laboratory, maintenance area, restrooms, and pantry space.

Project at a Glance

Completed: 2016

Cost: $12,000,000

Project Type: Renovation

Building Science Leadership