Blake Marvin - HKS, Inc.

The US Census Bureau Headquarters supports 6,500 employees with a conference center, training center, two data centers, auditorium, fitness center, full kitchen/dining facility, separate two-story library and mail delivery facility, and 2,000,000 SF parking garage. GHT provided base building electrical engineering design for the project.

The emergency system serves the building’s and parking garage’s life safety and standby emergency loads including elevators, fire pumps, egress lighting, stair pressurization, smoke evacuation, fire alarm, and security, as well as the telecommunications systems, data centers, uninterruptable power system (UPS) and the required cooling equipment to support the critical areas. The structure features fully redundant telecommunications services and under floor air and cabling distribution.

The building uses a primary 13.8 KV electrical service and four Pepco 13.8 feeders. It is served by four main electrical rooms, each with a four transformer spot network distribution system. The emergency and UPS system is supported by two parallel 1500 KW prime rated generators and paralleling switchgear with controlled circuit breakers.