ASHRAE Region VI Honors Two GBA Projects

Awards | GBA News

ASHRAE Region VI has honored two GBA projects with Technology Awards: an addition for Ronald McDonald House Charities Eastern WI, in Milwaukee, WI (First Place, Residential, Design) and a project combining retro- and monitoring-based commissioning for SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital – Janesville in Janesville, WI (First Place, Healthcare, Existing Building Commissioning).

Awards were announced at the Region VI conference in May.

GBA’s Milwaukee regional office (Wauwatosa) was responsible for the winning Ronald McDonald House project, which also won an ASHRAE Wisconsin Chapter award. The project was an addition to an existing facility near Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, creating 14 guest rooms plus storage space, assembly space, administrative space, a two-story children’s play area, a conference room, and a kitchen and dining room. GBA evaluated the facility’s existing systems and developed a design for a sustainable solution that addressed owner requirements in the areas of sound/noise, energy efficiency, and indoor air quality. The project included a campuswide chilled water system and four-piped fan coils with a dedicated outdoor air system for ventilation (DOAS). The team included Project Manager Jason Leffingwell, Principal-in-Charge Rick Katzung, and Nora Adkins, Zach Sopata, Kyle Wallenfang, Willis Perley, Jared Mocco, Jessica Schmitz, and Karen Long.

The Chicago regional office (Evanston) was responsible for the SSM St. Mary’s – Janesville project, which had previously won an ASHRAE Illinois chapter award. The Wisconsin hospital, which opened in 2012, is a 174,884-square-foot acute care facility with 50 staffed beds. GBA was retained by SSM to implement a retro-commissioning program: identifying energy savings opportunities; providing scopes of work or necessary design drawings; receiving and reviewing contractor bids; and working with contractors to implement the work. After the project, trend data was reviewed using GBA’s Trend Sumo® in-house monitoring software, and a verification report was provided to confirm that the measures were completed and met the identified targets. A total of 536,000 kWh/year was saved through implementation of eight measures, as well as 31,000 therms of natural gas. Payback, including incentives, was just 2.2 years. GBA Project Managers David Cohen and Fiona Martin McCarthy and Senior Engineer Daiju Varghese led the team, with assistance from Justin D’Arcy, Eric Rosenberg, and Alec Schultz. The Principal-in-Charge was John Villani.

Both projects will go on to compete for Technology Awards at the Society (international) level. 

GBA congratulates its clients and the team members who worked on these exemplary projects.

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