Austin City Hall
301 West Second Street - Austin, TX

ACR provided the MEP design, bid assistance, construction administration and LEED commissioning for Austin's new City Hall. The scope of the design work included HVAC, power, lighting, data and communications, plumbing and fire protection for the City Hall, Public Plaza, Parking Garage and the Pedestrian Tunnel System. The 115,000 square foot building includes four-stories of office space, conference rooms, an auditorium, a store and a café, above three-levels of below-grade parking. City Hall is connected to Austin Energy's Downtown District Cooling Plant, which provides energy-efficient air conditioning to a number of public and private facilities nearby.

ACR also provided full commissioning services for City Hall, in compliance with requirements to achieve a silver rating under the USGBC's LEED Rating System. MEP design for City Hall was conducted by a team of engineers based in the Austin office of ACR Engineering. Given the Owner's and Architect's level of confidence in the work performed by ACR, they requested that the commissioning services be performed through ACR as well. This work was performed by personnel from the ACR Houston and Harlingen offices.

Austin City Hall achieved a LEED Gold rating, and has already been recognized as the best Municipal Building in Texas.

Sustainable Features Include:

• Power outlets for electric vehicle charging.
• Site lighting in compliance with dark-sky ordinances.
• Use of ground water for landscape irrigation.
• Low-flow plumbing fixtures and electronic flush devices.
• Chilled water fed from a district cooling plant including high-efficiency chillers and thermal energy storage.
• High-efficiency mechanical systems – pumps and fans with variable frequency drives, high-efficiency boilers.
• No use of CRC of HCFC refrigerants – not even for computer rooms.
• Dual-path air handling systems to decouple ventilation loads from building thermal loads and use of CO2 – based ventilation sequences.
• Specified a construction indoor air quality management plan.
• Specified low VOC adhesives, sealants and paints.
• Specified permanent monitoring system to verify thermal comfort.
• Specified and implemented a full-blown Commissioning Plan.
• Designed the use of condensate to feed water fountain.
• Integrated solar photo-voltaic system with building power.
• Specified dual-level lighting controls for parking garage and assisted with interior building lighting design.