Wiegmann Associates has begun work on the St. Charles County Emergency Management’s new $20 million Emergency Operations Center in O’Fallon, Missouri. The new center will bring all of the county’s emergency resources under one roof and speed response time.
Wiegmann is the Engineer of Record and design/build HVAC mechanical contractor for the project. Brinkmann Constructors is the general contractor.
The 30,000-square-foot, one-story building will house the day-to-day operations of the Department of Emergency Communications, St. Charles County Police Department’s Division of Emergency Management and a 1,400-square-foot mission critical data center for county information technology operations and the county-wide emergency radio communications system.
Because the facility must continue to operate during natural disasters and terrorist threats, it will be built to comply with ICC500, the design and construction standard for storm shelters. Wiegmann is building 100-percent redundency into the HVAC systems and data center to ensure uninterupted operation under any conditions.
Wiegmann’s scope of work includes the design and installation of heating and cooling infrastructure for the facility and the mission-critical data center. St. Charles County needed a cost-effective HVAC system that was reliable, efficient and would meet the stringent standards required for this type of facility. Wiegmann’s HVAC solution delivers lower first costs and operating costs, is simpler to operate than other considered options and will accommodate future expansion.
A Building Automation System will prioritize cooling for critical areas. If building temperatures rise above a set point due to multiple equipment failures, the BAS system will start to cut off airflow to non-critical areas so critical areas such as the data center can remain conditioned.
The HVAC system will also provide tight humidity control to protect evidence housed in a 6,200-square-foot addition to the adjacent St. Charles County Police Department. A 6,300-square-foot addition to the adjacent fleet storage building will be used for maintenance and storage of the County’s Emergency’s vehicles and equipment.