The Thrill of Victory - Structure Tone Inc.

10©John Baer/PDM PicturesMission Accomplishedby Terence Deneny A key issue while constructing the data center was managing the integration of power, coolingand technology componentsBusiness continuity is a paramount issuetoday affecting companies large andsmall across a broad brush of marketsectors. Financial services, higher education,healthcare, energy, insurance, media, technology,telecommunications—no industry is immunefrom the need to protect, and ensure accessto, data and the uninterrupted flow ofdaily business that revolves around it. There areany number of steps an organization can taketo ensure business continuity, one of the primaryamong them, particularly for larger businesses,being the development of data centersand disaster recovery facilities.Just as two widely disparate structures suchas a beach bungalow and Hollywood Hillsmansion can be called homes, so too cangrossly different facilities be considered datacenters. However, industry standards havebeen developed that, when used to describethe data center, help us better understandthe magnitude of the facility.One of the most common among those is aTier Rating, as created and defined by the UptimeInstitute. Currently, data centers can berated as Tier 1 through IV. Tier ratings refer tothe reliability of the center’s infrastructuresystems and power supply. Tier ratings encompassalmost 50 discrete elements of electrical,mechanical, architectural and structuralsystems, as well criteria for redundant components,power delivery paths, raised floorratio and height, allowable downtime and siteselection, among other concerns. Tier IV arethe most complex data centers. This data center’s cooling infrastructure,like all data centers’ today, had to keep pacewith the ever increasing density of computerprocessing equipment©John Baer/PDM Pictures©John Baer/PDM PicturesIn 2008, Structure Tone will put in place over$550M in data center construction, mostlyTier III and IV, including completing constructionof a 476,000sf enterprise data centerand disaster recovery facility in centralNJ (see side bar facts). The project entailedadaptive reuse of a 236,000sf single-storywarehouse and construction of a new,240,000sf, two-story addition to create afully integrated facility.The project was the culmination of an approximately24-month endeavor that beganwith due diligence and site selection assistance.Our staff worked closely with theowner, developer (Tishman Speyer), broker(CBRE), architect (Gensler) and MEP engineer(Jaros Baum & Bolles) during this phaseto select the eventual project site. “Weworked closely with all parties throughoutthe project,” said project manager KevinMulvey. “The due diligence stage, in particular,was a very collaborative effort withTishman Speyer, CBRE and the owner.”During the site selection phase, our focuswas on assessing the pros and cons of a siteand their respective impacts on the owner.The final result was the selection of a sitethat offered opportunities for cost savingswhile providing better logistics, enabling theowner to achieve more with the budget andschedule allocated for the project. Issuessuch as cost to bring power to the site, continuityof data center operations (i.e. a constrainedsite that had to go multi-storyvertical vs. a more horizontal space on oneor two levels), site environmental considerationsand a host of other issues were examined.We prepared budgets and costcomparisons for the sites and the issues particularto each so that our client could makethe most informed decision with regard tocost and risk and reward.Once the final site was selected, we interfacedclosely with Gensler, ThorntonTomasetti and Jaros Baum & Bolles performingvalue engineering, to the great benefitof the owner. Together, we scrutinizedevery facet of the existing building to determinewhat could be salvaged and renovated.This saved both budget and schedule versussimply tearing it down.V O L U M E I V | Q III | 2 0 0 8