Meadowlane Intermediate School — Central Energy Plant

Project Overview

Meadowlane Intermediate School in West Melbourne, Florida is a 116,700-square-foot education building with classrooms, offices, a dining hall, a kitchen, and multipurpose space. BEED Engineering provided mechanical and plumbing engineering design and project administration.

The mechanical work did not stop at this building. A water-cooled central energy chiller plant was designed to serve three schools: Central Middle, Meadowlane Primary, and Meadowlane Elementary. The intermediate school is therefore both an occupied education building and the host of a campus chilled-water plant.

The Challenge

A school of this size needs classroom comfort, kitchen exhaust, and — in Florida — a ventilation strategy for hurricane-shelter use. Adding a central plant that also serves two neighboring schools raises the stakes: the hydronic design, air-handling layout, and controls have to work for more than one building.

The design had to:

• Provide a water-cooled central energy chiller plant with enough capacity and distribution for three campuses
• Serve classrooms, offices, dining, kitchen, and multipurpose space with variable air volume air-handling units and pressure-independent terminals
• Include HVAC controls that can run the plant and the air side as one system
• Ventilate hurricane-shelter occupancy when the building is used that way
• Provide kitchen hood exhaust, grease traps, and water-efficient plumbing fixtures

Those requirements are typical of larger education projects in West Melbourne and across Brevard County, where school buildings often share plant capacity instead of each carrying a standalone rooftop system.

BEED Engineering's Scope

BEED provided mechanical and plumbing engineering design services and project administration, including:

• Mechanical engineering for the water-cooled central energy chiller plant, VAV air-handling units, pressure-independent terminals, HVAC controls, hurricane-shelter ventilation, and kitchen hood exhaust
• Plumbing engineering for grease traps and water-efficient fixtures
• Project administration

Electrical engineering was not listed as part of this assignment.

Engineering Solutions

The water-cooled central energy chiller plant is the cooling source for Central Middle, Meadowlane Primary, and Meadowlane Elementary. Variable air volume air-handling units with pressure-independent air terminals condition the intermediate school’s occupied spaces. HVAC controls coordinate plant operation with terminal airflow.

Hurricane-shelter ventilation is included so the building can be used as a shelter without relying on the normal classroom outdoor-air sequence alone. Kitchen hood exhaust and grease traps serve the dining and kitchen areas. Water-efficient plumbing fixtures reduce domestic water use across the 116,700-square-foot building.

The mechanical room — air-handling equipment, insulated chilled-water piping, and supported hydronic mains — is the visible center of a plant that cools more than one school at a time.