Clark/McCarthy Team Replacing LAX's Central Utility Plant

LOS ANGELES – Clark/McCarthy, A Joint Venture, is returning to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The joint venture team, which completed the $723.5 million ($575 million for construction cost) Tom Bradley International Terminal Improvements and Baggage Screening Systems Project in 2010, recently was awarded a $272 million design-build contract to replace the airport's central utility plant (CUP). 

The project will provide LAX with a new, 75,000-square-foot CUP with a 20,000 ton cooling capacity. The CUP's equipment will include electric-driven centrifugal chillers, steam-driven chillers, and a cogeneration system that uses steam generators to recover heat produced by gas-turbine-driven generators. The project team will be responsible for installing all the associated equipment, which encompasses a stand-by boiler, primary and secondary chilled water pumps, cooling towers, and an above-grade thermal energy storage tank.

Clark/McCarthy also will install replacement utility distribution piping, electrical and communications duct banks, reclaimed water, fire water, and potable water piping to all terminals at LAX. The existing CUP will service the airport throughout construction. Upon completion, the replacement will be brought on-line and the existing central utility plant will be decommissioned and demolished.

Systems and their components will be designed and constructed to achieve LEED^® Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Construction will begin in February and is scheduled to be completed in summer 2014.

Gruen Associates of Los Angeles is the architect and Arup of Los Angeles is the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, and commissioning engineer. Additional project partners include Capital Engineering Consultants, Rancho Cordova, Calif., mechanical consultant; Greenform, Los Angeles, sustainability consultant; and PID Engineering, San Diego, cogeneration consultant.