East Village District Plant
Case Study
Overview:
San Diego’s downtown is undergoing tremendous change. One area where the transformation is most dramatic is the East Village district, which boasts the new PETCO ballpark as its crown jewel. PETCO was designed as the epicenter for additional development and approximately 5.5 million square feet of property will eventually be built around the ballpark. The layout and blueprints for development presented the City of San Diego with a unique opportunity to develop a “district cooling” system for the East Village district.
What is District Cooling?
Simply put, a district cooling system distributes chilled water from a central source to multiple buildings through a network of underground pipes for use in air conditioning systems and process cooling.
Why District Cooling?
Implementing a district cooling plant has operational benefits, reduces costs, provides built-in system flexibility, enhances overall property value, increases energy efficiency and ensures reliability. District Cooling is a cornerstone for sustainable design and LEED certification.
About the East Village District Plant:
Jackson & Blanc (J&B), a leading mechanical contractor in Southern California, was hired as Prime Contractor to design, build and operate a district cooling plant to serve the requirements of the developments being built in San Diego’s East Village. When completed, the East Village District Plant (EVDP) will provide over 12,000 tons of cooling capacity to downtown businesses and residents and will operate as an unmanned facility – a rarity in the industry.
Schedule & Phasing:
Plans called for development in the Village to be built out over a number of years, so phasing of the production output of the district cooling plant was also necessary. As project manager, Jackson & Blanc took charge of the economic evaluation, system selection, cost estimates and scheduling for construction of each phase of the plant.
Phase 1A construction of the EVDP began in Spring of 2003 and included the construction and development of the 8,000 square foot plant building, 8,000 lineal feet of distribution piping, and a core mechanical system with 2,600 tons of cooling. Phase 1B of plant construction began in February of 2006 and added two additional chillers, bringing the production total to 5,200 tons and fill out the original main building.
Phase 2 of plant construction is scheduled to begin in late 2007, to coincide with the build-out of the Ballpark Village recently approved by the San Diego City Council. This phase is expected to add about 7,000 additional tons of chilled water production, although the overall system design can accommodate up to 12,200 tons.
Operations & Management:
As mentioned above, the EVDP is a fully operational, unmanned district cooling plant. Jackson & Blanc uses control technology, which enables them to manage the plant through an online system accessible from any computer or handheld digital device. A dedicated team of Plant Managers routinely monitor the plant’s systems, but a dedicated, on-site staff is not necessary to ensure that the plant operates at peak performance.
Jackson & Blanc has a 20-year agreement with JMI Realty to operate and maintain the East Village District Cooling Plant. In addition, responsibility for marketing, construction management, billing and client management over the 20 year agreement period will be handled by Team Service, a Jackson and Blanc affiliate. Jackson & Blanc’s goal is total customer satisfaction and 100 percent uptime delivery, which has consistently achieved since start up.
Summary
It is unusual that a large-scale re-development project such as that in the East Village of San Diego allows for the development of central plant production. The scale and economy of the EVDP allowed Jackson & Blanc the use of modern equipment, design strategies and control systems that are typically not feasible in individual site-specific plants. The development and management of the EVDP project has positioned Jackson & Blanc as an integral player in the development of San Diego’s East Village district and set them apart as a leader in the mechanical contractor industry.
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