LOCATION
Des Moines, Iowa

AREA
115,000 GSF

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Polk County Criminal Courthouse project involved the renovation of the former county jail into a 5-story criminal courthouse. Looking toward the future, the building’s fifth floor was left unfinished to accommodate further expansion.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

• The design included highly efficient water-cooled variable refrigerant systems, a roof-mounted cooling tower, and multiple high-efficiency condensing boilers.
• The plant was designed to serve the Criminal Courts Building and to provide heating and cooling to the Historic Courthouse Building across the street. An existing tunnel connecting the buildings was utilized to pipe central plant capacity to the Historic Courthouse.
• A new 480V, 3-phase electrical distribution system was designed to provide convenient power solutions throughout the facility.
• Architectural lighting design services were provided to incorporate LED lighting solutions throughout the interior spaces, reducing the lighting power density to 53% better than the code minimum.
• New code-compliant lighting control systems were incorporated into the design and provide individual control throughout many staff areas. Control systems for public spaces were designed to regulate lighting systems automatically through a partial building-wide control network.
• A new plumbing system with highly efficient condensing water heaters was incorporated into the design.
• The electronic video surveillance system scope included migrating the analog cameras to IP-based and adding new IP cameras and associated equipment.
• Audiovisual systems throughout the facility include sound reinforcement, video evidence display and video conferencing capabilities for the courtrooms, speech amplification and recording, video presentation for training rooms and conference room spaces, as well as digital signage and room schedulers.

Photography credit: ©Wayne Johnson, Main Street Studio