Market for Sustainable Mechanical Heats Up

By Jennifer LeClair

Flexible green mechanical engineering is not only a mouthful, it's still a mountainous challenge, said Professor Matt Taylor of Washington State University's School of Architecture and Construction Management. When it comes to flexibility, he sees the contractor-owner-tenant relationship changing over the coming years.

"Mechanical engineering is going to play a big part in speculative buildings because natural gas prices have jumped up more than 50 percent across the nation," Taylor said. "The performance of facilities matters more. In the past, it wasn't factored in to the ability to rent a spec building. Now it will be. High-performance buildings will insulate the owner and renter from an extremely volatile market."

One example is the Center for Health and Healing at the River Campus of Oregon Health & Science University, lauded by the U.S. Green Building Council as a green building breakthrough.

The 16-story, 400,000-sq.-ft., mixed-use facility is on track to achieve LEED Platinum status. When it is completed in the summer, the Center for Health and Healing will be the first platinum-LEED building in Portland. It will be the most efficient, large-scale building in the Northwest and one of the greenest in the world.

The design emphasizes the health and comfort of occupants, along with significant energy and water savings. The building also helps answer a nagging question among mechanical engineers: How do you design and build without overbuilding - even when you don't know what the end use will be?

With its many uses, the Center for Health and Healing required a flexible approach to mechanical engineering. Outpatient surgery, clinics, a two-story health club, classrooms, research space and offices share the building, and each has different mechanical engineering requirements.

"We don't know the future use of the building and how energy-intensive it will be, so one of the issues was designing for the future," said Jerry Yudelson, PE of Portland, Ore.-based Interface Engineering, the firm that engineered the center and publisher of Engineering a Sustainable World. "We designed in some reserve capacity."

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Interface's goal was to avoid overbuilding in the beginning but to plan for the building's evolution. The firm designed in excess capacity knowing it is easier to downscale than to upscale during renovations. That's one example of how flexible green mechanical engineering requires a long-term mindset, Yudelson said.

"Over the course of 100 years you will replace the HVAC equipment three or four times," he added. "You need to make sure it is accessible so you don't have to tear it apart in the basement and reassemble another piece of equipment. That is a key design consideration for flexibility because if the building goes from hospital to office or even from office to condo, the heating and cooling requirements are much different."

Designing mechanical systems for adaptable use often means height limits and floor-area ratios, said Gary Lawrence, urban strategies leader in the Seattle office of design, engineering and consulting firm Arup. Suspended floors that make room for mechanical systems provide more flexibility than designing these systems into the ceiling.

The Kansai International Airport in Japan employs this philosophy. The building has no internal ductwork but is mechanically ventilated. The roof is designed to allow air to circulate down. That frees the airport to move retail locations around within the facility.

But suspended floors and specially designed roofs can create additional problems and cost.

"Suspended floors raise the requirement for floor-to-ceiling heights," Lawrence said. "In many cases, you wind up with less gross revenue per square foot. It could reduce two or three stories of leasable space in the building."

Lawrence said the issue is magnified in speculative buildings, where the developer needs flexibility but also needs to see how the budgets pencil out in the short-term.

Most Northwest developers demand some degree of flexibility even in speculative buildings, said Paul Ansueew, a principal in the Seattle office of Stantec Engineering. By the same token, building codes are so strict that at least some elements of green design are almost inevitable.

Flexibility without overdesigning is a constant challenge and one that Stantec tackled for Seattle-based Vulcan Inc. with its speculative Green Lab.

The hypothetical structure was benchmarked against the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, which was nationally recognized for its innovative environmental and sustainable features. SBRI qualified for a Silver LEED rating.

There is no immediate plan to build the facility, but Ansueew said it proved a point that "we could build a flexible green building. There was a slight premium, but the lifecycle payback was attractive. Labs are one of the most demanding building types in terms of mechanical requirements.

"They may require 24/7 systems. Yet the Green Lab has natural ventilation, natural light and is energy-efficient. The column spacing is also designed so it could be transformed into an office space."

Industry Leaders Speak Out

Daniel M. Smith, Vice President
Kinetics Group

"The commercial and health care markets continue to look strong in 2006. We're also seeing some additional work from our electronics manufacturing customers. While it may not happen as soon as 2006, we're very hopeful that the addition of the Bio-Medical facilities (OHSU) will attract more Bio-Medical research and production to the Northwest. We expect our revenues to be steady from 2005."

"We have maintained a very balanced approach serving the process needs of our electronics customers and the HVAV and plumbing needs of our commercial customers. This approach has allowed us to minimize some of the variability in the market. We are very involved in the Design Build side of the market and are always looking for opportunities where we can become part of the construction team early."

"Technology is always moving forward. There have been many equipment and process improvements over the years that have enabled us to drive down costs at the project levels". (Submitted in writing)

Gus Simonds, President
MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions

For McDonald-Miller Facility Solutions in Seattle, 2006 is a continuation of the upward revenue trend for the company, and will probably be followed by good years in 2007 and 2008.

"Most mechanical contractors are at a sweet spot for efficiency," said Gus Simonds, president of the company. "But are still looking for good projects in 2006 and 2007."

The upturn in construction follows several slow years, brought on by the economic turndown after September 11, 2001. MacDonald-Miller is lucky enough to have a strong service department. "Our service department is one way we maintained during the slower times," Simonds said.

MacDonald Miller, crews are working on Lincoln Square in Bellevue and Rushton Landing in Tacoma. Washington Square just getting going City Center East, Bellevue.

As projects get bigger and more complex it always smart to consider other alternatives, rather than doing all the work yourself. As Northwest economy heats up it helps to efficiently spread out the labor between To handle the large capacity, MacDonald Miller is partnering with other mechanical subcontractors. The customer ends up with a better teamAt the Sheraton Hotel, being built by Skanska USA Building, Inc, MacDonald-Miller is in charge of the dry side and Auburn Mechanical will do the plumbing.

"Working together is a different thing for us. We do it when we are working out of town, but it is a new idea in your core geographic area," Simonds said. "It's a smart thing to do because it's easier to manage risk."

Risk is one of the biggest problems facing all subcontractors, especially with the glut of highrise condominium construction planned. The amount of mechanical- corridor ventilation, thousands of fittings and joints makes "the set of risks doing an office building look easy," Simonds said. "There is definitely some creative tension between the architects and the contractors to figure out how to squeeze in all the systems."

Insurance to cover possible liability is a question all mechanical contractors have to consider. Wrap around policies "don't provide enough coverage for a mechanical," Simonds said. "People are just starting to understand what is really at risk."

Rob Harris
J.H. Kelly, Portland

"What kind of projects are we not working on?" said Rob Harris, vice president J. H. Kelly in Vancouver, Wash.

The company has a part in almost every major hospital project in Oregon - Providence and OHSU in Portland and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene. Several large condo projects are coming on line as well such as The John Ross, The Meriwether, The Atwater all in Portland.

Industrial work, a mainstay for the company, is also picking up with work at BP Cherry Point, Conoco Phillips, and Shell in Anacortes, Wash. and a 400 megawatt power project in Clatskanie, Ore.

"More capital spending is also coming on line for Weyerhaueser and Potlatch in the pulp and paper field, and we are looking at expanding into ethanol project facilities all down the West Coast," Harris said.

As far as labor supply goes, Kelly is lucky because most of the bigger projects are running in sequence. "The Meriwether will be finished before the John Ross begins," Harris said. He expects to have 1,000 people on the payroll before 2006 is over.

One thing that helps is that over the last 14 months the company has held monthly competitions for the best labor saving idea. The ideas come from using tools common in one industry the company works in and transferring it to the other.

Ken Phillips
Temp Control, Portland

"The next two years look great," said Ken Phillips, of Temp Control in Portland. The company will focus mostly on medical and condo projects, with projected revenues of $50 million. Work is just finishing on Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital and the company will start work soon on the Kaiser Sunnyside office building. The general contractor on both projects is Skanska USA Building, Portland.

The company plans to add about 270 people in the field in all three trades in the next month or two.

"Our biggest concern is the shortage of plumbers here," Phillips said. "Fortunately we have a good relationship with our unions and they are very cognizant of what is happening."