The Urbana Elementary School replacement project is a new elementary school housing grades Pre-K through 5th is to be designed and constructed to replace the existing school on a 19-acre site. The Urbana Elementary School replacement was awarded USGBC LEED Silver certification in August 2021. ECS provided Building Envelope Commissioning (LEED v4.0). The architect for the new Urbana Elementary School replacement project is Grimm and Parker Architects and the Construction Manager was Oak Contracting, LLC.
What makes this project stand out?
The Urbana Elementary School Replacement project was the first time the Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) engaged a consultant to work with them through the Building Envelope Commissioning (BECx) Process to achieve 2 points in LEED v4.0 under Enhanced Commissioning.
ECS was chosen as the BECx partner because of the ongoing successful partnership between our geotechnical and construction material testing groups. Based on the mutual success of this relationship, ECS was also selected to provide BECx services on the next three capital improvement projects for FCPS.
How did we help?
Our Building Envelope Team worked with the FCPS staff to identify and explore prior challenges in existing facilities in addition to high performance goals set for the new school. This discussion informed the development of an Owner Project Requirement (OPR) and BECx Plan to achieve these metrics and deliver improved performance. The plan included activities to verify design and construction conformance with performance expectations through design review, submittal review, on-site performance mockup, on-site observations, field performance verification testing and issue tracking/resolution which led to performance expectations being met or exceeded.