10 minute read
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
9 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
The Broadway Office Development
The Broadway Office development is a twelve-story office building with an accompanying eight-story mixed-office and retail development located on a 3.1 acre lot off the northwest corner of Broadway and Pearl Parkway, just on the other side of HWY 281 from the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio, TX.
11 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Credit Human & The Oxbow Buildings Elevate Commercial Construction
The full project scope includes a twelve-story, client buildto-suit headquarters office building over a structured parking garage and an eight-story multi-tenant office building over a structured parking garage. Also included in the scope of the project, is the core and shell for the ground floor commercial space, demolition of existing foundations and structures and associated site work, courtyards and landscape.
Building Features
Interior Finish-Out of Credit Human
The Credit Human interior finish-out space was designed to provide a space reflecting the surrounding community, appreciating the Credit Human Members, employees, partners, and celebrating the long-term relationships. The design implemented a connection to nature, exposure to daylight, a mixture of natural and industrial materials to capture the owner’s goal of connecting people in engaging spaces. The space was also used to display art highlighting Credit Human’s mission statement, member stories, and the implementation of building slack. The space implements the use of shareable spaces and amenities, creating a connection with the Credit Human members and the community partners. The overall space of Credit Human was designed to be open and flexible to allow for the interaction of the employees, as well as their interaction with the members.
With this open concept there was great focus on the flexibility and functionality of all spaces including the open work environment, the Financial Health Center (FHC), the public spaces, such as break areas, focus rooms, dining and serving areas, terraces, large and small conference rooms, phone rooms, and huddle rooms.
Appearance & Materials
The buildings and spaces as a whole were designed to push the envelope of sustainability. The materials selected on the interior finish-out did not shy away from these demands either.
All building materials used throughout the project were selected specifically by the design team, owner and Joeris to meet the sustainability requirements, and to implement reclaimed materials, specifically, locally sourced reclaimed materials.
Reclaimed Materials
The development includes a reclaimed 20,000 gallon vertical water storage tank, which was originally a horizontal brewing tank, as well as 20 smaller 100-gallon tanks reworked to become a fence, blocking the view of electrical transformers, and six reclaimed trusses from the original brewery installed as decorative elements.
The design and construction teams worked together to ensure the building looked native to the San Antonio skyline. Achieving this required hundreds of intricate brick details used on the first five floors. D’Hanis brick was “tumbled” with other bricks to create the appearance of an aged building.
The tumbled brick was carried into the interior of the building and brick from a local plant was used exclusively in the construction of the garage.
Implementation of Materials
There was an expansive amount of reclaimed wood materials and features used throughout the interior finish-out space that were locally sourced including the reclaimed pine from the GJ Sutton building that was recently demolished on the east side of San Antonio. The reclaimed wood material was used on level one and the mezzanine of the FHC adjacent to the living green wall and on the feature walls in all of the meeting rooms.
A majority of the reclaimed wood was a variety of red oak, white oak, and oak used specifically for the wood cladding details and millwork throughout the project.
A vast quantity of metal finishes were used throughout the building, including a prominent steel stair structure installed in concrete slab voids created during the installation of the core and shell building structure on levels 6-11.
There was also an exposed steel structure used to create the mezzanine level of the Financial Health Center. Carried throughout the space are solid steel members, as well as metal and steel cladding details.
To achieve the flexibility of the open work environment, building materials and systems were selected to allow for Credit Human to have the option to move throughout the space.
Systems such as a low-profile raised floor were installed on levels 6-12 to allow for workstations and huddle rooms.
Demountable wall and pod systems were installed throughout the building to allow for the flexibility of space used in conference rooms, huddle rooms, open collaboration, phone rooms, and work rooms. With the open work environment, careful thought was put into the acoustics of the work areas.
Ceiling baffles and ceiling clouds were installed to help with acoustics and provide a filter between the work space and exposed MEP systems above. There were also fabric panels installed in conference rooms to help with reducing noise levels.
13 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Transformational Systems
Highly Efficient Infrastructure
The Credit Human building utilizes a hybrid condenser water system comprised of a geothermal bore field, cooling towers, fans, and pumps to optimize the energy efficiency of the building.
The cooling towers were selected with low static, highefficiency fans to maximize the amount of energy transferred per horsepower. The condenser water pumps were selected to provide the maximum efficiency and are provided with intelligent, on-board VFDs to match the water flow of the towers and central system to the building load. With these strategies in place, the building is highly efficient, reducing energy and water consumption.
Ultra-high Efficiency Building Envelope
The Credit Human tower features walls with four inches of continuous insulation and a thermally broken window system, a type of window construction in which there is a barrier between the inner and outer window frames that limits the heat transfer through the window. The wall system doubles the insulation compared to a Texas code baseline design. The glass selected by the tenant has a shading coefficient of 0.25, which is significantly more efficient than code minimum glass.
Geothermal System
There are 150 geothermal wells on the site that circulate water through a network of tubes 355-feet below the surface collecting and dissipating heat. The underground geothermal system will provide heat transfer for 40% of the annual building cooling load and 100% of the annual heating load. This will save an estimated 1.25 million gallons of water each year by reducing the load of the cooling towers.
Radiant Flooring
There is a radiant flooring system in the 5th floor slab of the Credit Human tower that is fed by the condenser water system. This will warm the floor plate during periods of colder weather, reducing the need for heating.
15 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
LEED Platinum Sustainability Features
Cutting-edge solar energy and water conservation and energy-efficient systems make this development a symbol of sustainable construction.
Estimated 97% of non-potable water collected from rainwater capture systems 40% more efficient as compared to buildings of a similar size 150 geothermal wells to supply 100% of each building’s heat & 40% of air conditioning
17 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Photo-voltaic System (solar panels)
There is a one-megawatt system, which happens to be the largest system in the country on a building of this size. Installation of 2,912 photo-voltaic panels totaling one megawatt of photo-voltaic capacity on the roofs and parking structure of the building provide an estimated 60% renewable energy for the building’s total annual electricity demand.
Water Heaters
The domestic water heaters are connected to the building’s condenser water system, which will help pre-heat the domestic water through an internal heat exchanger within the water heater allowing the water heaters to use less energy to heat the domestic water. Once the condenser water has raised the domestic water temperature, then the water heater turns on and heats the domestic water up to reach the required temperature.
Lighting Controls
All of the lighting in the office spaces will be turned off based on occupancy sensors and according to the building’s scheduled on and off times. There are daylight harvesting zones around the exterior that will dim based on the amount of sunlight coming through.
Other energy-efficient fixtures and technologies are incorporated throughout the building, including LED lighting, advanced plug controls, and energy star appliances. Advanced plug load controls help save energy by switching off typical office loads such as computer monitors when spaces are unoccupied.
Plug Load Controls
Some of the outlets throughout the office floors are controlled by the light fixture occupancy sensors, so when no movement is detected for a certain amount of time that plug is automatically turned off. Also, these plugs are on a schedule to be off and on with the other building systems. Rainwater Capture
The building will use 97% less potable water than a typical 200,000 square-foot building. This is accomplished by both capturing water and conserving the water use. Capturing rainwater and HVAC condensate for non-potable uses, such as toilet flushing, landscape irrigation, and cooling tower supply, is an integral part of the building’s plumbing design.
The rainwater/condensate harvesting system on the site can store up to 150,000 gallons of rainwater in above- and below-ground cisterns and day tanks — more than any other building in the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) service area. Two of the water recapture tanks are salvaged tanks from the original Pearl Brewery.
With the help of the City of San Antonio recycled water back-up, this system provides 100% of its nonpotable water needs. As demand for and cost of water increases, rainwater/condensate harvesting presents an incredible opportunity to help the community conserve potable water.
Recycled Water Connection from SAWS
The development is connected to the city’s recycled water system. The City of San Antonio’s recycled water line system is available to qualifying buildings that utilize grey water (sanitized, cleaned and treated sewage) to flush toilets. This helps lower the usage of domestic water and is sold to the end user at a much cheaper rate than domestic water.
No Boiler
This large commercial building has no boiler. Boilers use a lot of energy to run and typically are used for the HVAC system when heating is required. Instead, the variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system handles the building heating through refrigerant.
Variable Refrigerant Flow HVAC System
The heating and cooling for this building are all run by a Mitsubishi VRF system. This is a refrigerant based system that can provide simultaneous heating and cooling and is the most energy-efficient HVAC system available. A VRF system utilizes high-efficiency condensing units and heat recovery boxes to minimize energy usage while providing increased occupant control and comfort for occupants.
The system accomplishes this by utilizing energy from other zones to heat and cool each other. For example, if Zone 1 is in cooling and Zone 2 is in heating, the VRF system takes the energy discharged into the system from Zone 1 and utilizes it to heat Zone 2. In addition to the energy savings, material is saved during installation, as well as, the fan coils eliminate the need for bulky ductwork throughout the space.
SWEGON Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS)
These units provide fresh air to the building. The SEWGON brand was selected by the owner because it was the most energy-efficient DOAS unit available. These units have an internal energy recovery wheel that uses the exhaust air from the building to transfer cooling to and pre-treat the incoming hot outside air before the outside air hits the unit’s cooling coils.
Energy recovery wheels help save electricity. For example, if the outdoor temperature is 100 degrees, the unit does not have to cool 100-degree air because the energy recovery wheel can pre-cool this air to 80-degrees by transferring the temperature from the conditioned building exhaust air to the incoming outside air.
The air streams never cross, instead there is an enthalpy wheel (energy recovery wheel) that is cooled by the exhaust air from the building, then the outside air blows through the other side of that wheel as it spins, cooling the outside air stream before it gets to the units’ refrigerant cooling coils.
19 BROADWAY OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Future of Construction
Transforming the people and places in our community drives us to continually seek out developers and clients, like Silver Ventures and Credit Human, who have a shared vision and mission of positively impacting local Texas communities. TRANSFORMING people and places.
