2RW conducted a planning study that informed central utility plant options and site utility infrastructure for VCU’s Athletic Village, focusing on minimizing fossil fuel usage to align with VCU’s sustainability objectives. As a result, electric heat pump technologies were recommended to serve the buildings, potentially enabling the Athletic Village to achieve carbon neutrality and reduce the environmental and economic impacts of fossil fuel energy.

2RW recommended two options: a centralized campus geo-exchange distribution or an individual air-source cooling/heating system for each facility. Project constraints were considered, and the proposed systems were designed to accommodate the use of gas-fired equipment today, with the flexibility to decrease or eliminate fossil fuels in the future while maintaining the necessary system distribution configurations. Additionally, as part of the master planning process, 2RW provided MEP/FP engineering for a conceptual design for each athletic building based on the two central utility options.