MEP/FP engineering for a site master plan for an off-campus VCU Athletic Village which offers new sports fields and facilities, including a tennis center with 12 lighted courts, 4,000-seat soccer stadium, 400m outdoor track and associated grandstands and support facilities, two lighted outdoor practice fields, a six-court indoor tennis facility and supporting spaces, and a 20,000 SF indoor multi-purpose facility. The plan also includes centralized trash, storage, and maintenance facilities; centralized team store, ticketing and security facilities, and a possible central utility plant.
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.
