A College Upgrade Where Quality of Light is More Important than Energy Saved

By Randy Reid with Katie Smith

College campuses across the country struggle with proper lighting, creating concerns about student and faculty safety, health, and campus upkeep. When I heard about LightServe’s 11,000-piece (and more in the works) fixture replacement for Lenoir Rhyne University, I needed to learn more about what they did to elevate this campus.

I talked with owner Bill Hurd, Malcolm Weeks, Account Manager, David Fusco, Designer, and Rob Williams, Project Manager. I was highly impressed to learn that LightServe has around 115 employees, a national footprint, and different channels within their company. A few of those channels include distribution, project, and managing services. The non-union company itself began in 2001 but was purchased by Bill and others in 2013. They work closely with Cooper Lighting Solutions, and confidently say that Cooper Lighting is their number one vendor. Bill states, “We try to be as self-sufficient as possible, but we can always count on Cooper for final touches.”

Lenoir Rhyne University, located in Hickory, North Carolina, needed completely new lighting around the campus. While there was interest in energy savings, the primary focus was based on aesthetics, security and safety, and light levels. Founded in 1891, it had been many decades since the last lighting updates, and LightServe stumbled into quite a few interesting situations. Malcolm Weeks shared, “The facilities are so old, we ran into everything imaginable.”

Phase 1 began with the residence halls, where they removed first generation LED corncob screw-in lights as well as linear lighting, ranging from T8s to T12s, and replaced them with Cooper decorative LED fixtures and volumetric fixtures. The decorative linear pendants were important in this project. Because of the location of the residence halls, it was essential to add an extra visual appeal to the university campus. Since the team was handling lighting from older facilities, they were replacing 2x4 troffers and 1x4 fluorescent strips. Some of those fluorescent fixtures had been mixed with LED tubes. LightServe used volumetric fixtures to complement the linear pendants in the Minges Science Building that had first generation LED tubes, and this helped to create a unified look on campus.

Installation for phase 1 took about six months–the team began, and then the pandemic hit. Since LightServe was working on a college campus, access was limited greatly due to working in classrooms and living spaces. Thankfully the team was working on forecast perspectives with Cooper Lighting, and was able to beat supply chain issues most of the time. The team is now in the final month of phase 2, and phase 3 is getting ready to begin.

This project has a 50% energy reduction systemwide. While the original wattage was anywhere from 112 watts with 4 lamp T8, to 64 watts, they now range from 35-50 watts after the retrofit. In the classrooms, the design dropped to 37-watt fixtures and residential halls increased their light levels from 1 to 2 footcandles to 4 or 5. They adjusted the lighting on a day-to-day basis to ensure the space’s needs were met. Color temperature was a standard 4000 K throughout, but 3500K in a few areas. The color rendering index was approximately 85+.

The Cromer Center is an older building and a central point where students meet. The building has plaster ceilings and odd-shaped openings that the team didn’t want to damage, so they worked with Cooper to adjust the fixtures to meet the locations of the existing wiring.

Another unique area is the stadium, which was previously lit with 1000-watt metal halide luminaires. The team ensured that the LED lights brought emphasis to the field with new poles, safety lighting, and lighting for the practice field behind the stadium. They increased the light level from approximately 30 footcandles to nearly 100 footcandles on the field.

The team noticed that a significant amount of exterior fixtures lacked proper upkeep and maintenance. There were wall-packs upwards of 40 feet in the air, with corn cob lights. Malcolm exclaimed “No wonder they have no light.” The team worked directly with the police department on campus, removing the poorly designed corncob retrofits and replacing them with suitable lights for the 40-foot height. While aesthetics was a key in designing the lighting for the campus, safety was too.

This extensive project is coming near a close, and Malcolm explained that they have used anywhere between 11,000 and 12,000 lights on just Phase 1 and 2, in approximately 50 different SKUs. The Cooper Lighting fixtures for this project range from downlights, recessed 2x4 and 2x2, pendant mount, exterior floodlights, decorative, security, walkways, and more. If you ever find yourself near Lenoir Rhyne, I highly recommend taking the time to walk through their campus and take notice of the stunning lighting that LightServe has installed. ■