Together with our HUB partner Moose Engineers, Cleary Zimmermann Engineers provided MEP design services for the two-story, 140,000 square foot Tech Port Center + Arena, winner of ENR Texas & Louisiana's 2022 Best Project, Sports/Entertainment. The centerpiece of the Center is a 38,000 square foot 2500-person Arena that can be reconfigured for conferences, banquets, concerts, and e-sports events. In addition to this main event center, the facility is also home to the 36,405 sq.ft. San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology (SAMSAT) and Technology Transfer Area, for which our team provided a white box with power and data in floor and ceiling in preparation for future exhibit design. SAMSAT also houses classroom spaces, a Control Room, and Broadcast Studio. The Center also includes a 17,600 sq. ft. coworking space and incubator for robotics and engineering design with conference and office spaces. The building houses a Food Hall and Kitchen with a large open seating/gathering area, as well as a few vendor booths and a warming kitchen for serving banquets in the arena. There is onsite parking for 650 cars.
The building is served by two (2) 300-ton Air Cooled Chillers with their respective primary chilled water pumps. The Innovation Center has a connected load of approximately 2300kVA. The secondary voltage of the transformer is 480/277 volt, three phase, four wire.
Special features on the site include electric vehicle charging stations, along with electronic displays and marquees in the plaza space in front of the building. The Innovation Center site is situated within the Military Lighting Overlay District thus all site lighting will be designed to meet the strict requirements of the MLOD to reduce the light output generated into the sky space. Dark Sky friendly light fixtures were utilized to reduce the backlight, uplight, and glare of traditional site lighting. The building façade included large scale graphic displays designed to dim, in an effort to meet any additional MLOD requirements.
