As part of the City of Chicago’s “Neighborhood Alive” program, the Public Building Commission replaced 12 police stations city-wide. These new prototype stations are 42,000 square feet, twice the size of the original stations. The new stations consist of a community room, a secure viewing lineup room, a video arraignment room for video teleconferencing, a fitness room, a roll call room, a quiet room, holding cells, office spaces, and a computer and telecommunications room with fiber optic networks for the 911 system, telephone and LAN systems.

Primera’s responsibility for several stations was initially to be the Engineer of Record for the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and telecommunications systems based upon the established prototype design. In an effort to achieve the City’s goal to allow the collective police stations to be a virtual power plant, Primera developed new prototype mechanical and electrical systems for stations built after 2004 that includes on-site power generation. The enhanced systems were modeled by Primera using energy modeling software that showed a 24.67% energy savings compared to an ASHRAE 90-1-2004 Baseline Model.

The new prototype design achieved a LEED Gold certification, with many of the required credits resulting from improved MEP system designs including energy efficient lighting, improved ventilation effectiveness and air quality, controls to monitor indoor comfort and building energy usage, and low flow plumbing fixtures.