Shapiro & Duncan

Owner:

AARP

General Contractor:

Shapiro & Duncan

Scope Of Work

The scope of the AARP Main Plant Modernization project involved renovation of an outdated HVAC central plant to an energy efficient modern system. The plant supplies chilled and hot water to the clients occupied headquarter office building, which includes a working video/sound recording studio, data center and employee cafeteria. 

Our biggest challenge was keeping the mechanical system online continuously during the project. Climate control had to be maintained throughout the building and the facility could never go without chilled water.

For this reason, the project was executed in four phases, the first three of which required replacement of one or more cooling towers and associated chillers and pumps. In the fourth phase, a 600-watt Cummins generator was replaced. Each stage had to be completed and commissioned before going on to the next one.

Another one of our top-level challenges, literally and figuratively, was the fact that almost all of the work took place on the rooftop of a fully occupied office building in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C. – in the middle of winter (additional mechanical work included the replacement of the ventilation system in the underground parking garage). Needless to say, this created a difficult set of jobsite staging issues.

Find out about the solutions Shapiro & Duncan implemented here: https://www.shapiroandduncan.com/aarp-main-plant-modernization/