Anne E. Robinson

Leach Wallace Associates, Inc. employs many expert consulting engineers who provide excellent advice in such fields that require mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services, energy systems design and evaluation, commissioning, testing and balancing services. The task of commissioning such technical projects involves a crucial phase which acts as a bridge between the conceptual development stage and the operational phase. It is the necessary push that provides the real motivating force giving life to a project, the ignition which launches a rocket on its way up, up and away. This phase spells the difference between failure and success in the project’s implementation. It tells the designer as well as the user whether the system actually achieves the expected targets, whether technical or financial, set at the beginning of the development. Engineering, after all, involves efficient use of material and economic resources.

Commissioning makes everything clear and sets all processes right even before major issues arise. It is fundamental in assuring clients a smooth transition from the completion of project construction, assembly and installation, allowing the owner to attain the confidence to run and maintain building systems. As industrialization progressed through the decades, commissioning has become a formalized and intricate process for buildings which include the efficient use of modern equipment, innovative systems and detailed operating procedures to avoid fraud. Experience and expertise count as a formidable pair of requisites no one can do without in going through this crucial process.

Specifically, Leach Wallace engineers undertake the process of commissioning meticulously in order to render documented validation that building systems operate and follow the standards set by the owner’s operational requirements and as stipulated in the project specifications. Matching the two – design and operational targets -- is vital to assuring clients that Leach Wallace has the experience and capability to deliver a well-designed and efficient building system. Moreover, a complete commissioning process pinpoints and adjusts costly operational issues or inadequacies.

Leach Wallace enjoys the trust and confidence of its many clients as it has consistently sought to satisfy their needs through the whole process of developing, designing, commissioning and operating a project. And even well beyond those steps, as clients continue to return to Leach Wallace for additional services.

The project constructs a new 4-story, 175,000 square foot building, which accommodates 60 residents, on the Armed Forces Retirement Home, Scott Building site in Washington, D.C. The scope of this project included the demolition of the existing retirement home and the construction of the new Scott Building. The new building includes 36 long term care rooms, 24 memory support rooms, a commercial kitchen, dining room, health and wellness center, multipurpose room and other residential services and administrative functions. The project was a design-build effort with Cooper Carry Architects and Hensel Phelps to modernize the facility.

Leach Wallace designed all new major mechanical and electrical systems for the facility. These systems include heating hot water boilers, chilled water plant, air handling units, domestic hot water plant, emergency generator plant, and normal and emergency power distribution equipment.

The upper two floors are for assisted living and consist of living space for the occupants. The bottom two floors have support space for the occupants such as kitchen and dining, multi-purpose rooms, medical clinic, and swimming pool.

The project was designed and has earned LEED Gold certification. Currently the job is seeking LEED Platinum. This project received the 2013 DBIA (Design Build Institute of America) Mid-Atlantic Region Awards, Healthcare category, Honorable Mention award, the 2013 Associated Builders and Contractors, Award of Excellence, as well as the Best Institutional Facility as presented at the 2013 Awards of Excellence Gala by NAIOP Maryland/DC Chapter.

Leach Wallace is experienced in facility master planning, utility infrastructure and the design and evaluation of central heating and cooling plants for such project types as higher educational, healthcare, academic medical, corporate office buildings, industrial facilities commissioning and data centers.

Leach Wallace was commissioned to design the expansion of the 300,000 sf New Patient Tower at Holy Cross, located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The expansion of the hospital included a 150 bed patient tower, including a new central energy plant and major renovation to the existing front lobby for circulation to the new tower. The major site renovations included a large expansion to the existing parking garage, new site utilities, underground fuel oil storage tanks, generators on grade, and site lighting.

A new central energy plant was provided to the penthouse of the new bed tower to service the entire campus. The new central energy plant included included a 3,000+ ton chiller plant with variable flow primary pumping systems and rooftop cooking tower yard, 50,000 lb/hr high pressure steam plant with new feed water systems. It also included central air handling systems with energy recovery, general and critical exhaust systems, domestic hot water plant, as well as main electrical distribution rooms, stair pressurization systems, central elevator machine room and smoke purge.

At the basement and ground level floor new central campus normal power distribution, emergency power distribution and paralleling gear room, central fire pump, domestic water booster pump, and steam-to-hot water heating plant. For energy recovery, a 750 ton heat pump chiller was provided, which will pre-cool the campus return chilled water returning to the central plant in the penthouse, and rejects its heat through condenser water to a loop in the heating hot water plant. All major air distribution was delivered to the floors as medium pressure, with air terminal units in the spaces to maintain individual zone loads.

The project was designed to achieve a “certified rating” from the USGBC. In addition, Green Guides for Healthcare (GGHC) Facilities document was utilized to identify a list of proposed sustainable features. This facility is seeking LEED Silver.

This project comprises the addition of a 9-story, 450,000 sf addition that will be utilized for inpatient beds at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC, part of the Johns Hopkins family of healthcare institutions.

It is the third phase of a three-phase project that includes a new medical office building and garage (phase 1), and a new Cancer Center (phase 2). This phase included the creation of a new front entrance and completed the major addition to what is now known as the “New Sibley”.

The new patient tower includes a new emergency department, new inpatient pharmacy and connecting bridge to the existing tower building. The inpatient tower provides 263 new all private rooms including shell space for a 20 bed expansion. The initial fit out consisted of a 20 bed LDR unit, sized for 4,000 annual births, with three new “c-section” rooms, a 20 bay special care nursery and a 50 bed post-partum support component.

A new 25 bed telemetry/IMC unit is located adjacent to a new 25 bed orthopedic unit. The remaining beds are for medical/surgical patients. A new and expanded emergency department, sized for 45-50,000 visits, provides new treatment bays including a new fast-track area and new waiting areas. A new single story entry pavilion acts as the new main entry and lobby space for the project. Minor renovation work was performed in the existing hospital to allow for the connection at several of the lower floors.

The project includes a chilled water plant that is expandable for future use as the sole chilled water plant; heating hot water boilers; domestic water plant; medical gas systems; custom air handling units; emergency generator plant; and normal and emergency power distribution that serves the new addition. In addition, this project provides the generator plant for the campus, which will be housed on the roof. The project included an expanded emergency department in addition to the inpatient beds.

Leach Wallace is utilizing Revit as our BIM software for this project. This project has been designed as a LEED® certified facility. Design is complete and bidding is due to begin in early 2013. Construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015.