Category 2: Meeting the Challenge of a Difficult Job – Specialty Contractor

Contractor: LEI Companies, Inc.

Project Name: Denver Union Station Renovation and Crawford Hotel

Overall Scope of Work

LEI Companies, Inc. was contracted to provide Design-Build Electrical for the restoration and

renovation of the landmark Denver’s Union Station Renovation and Crawford Hotel (DUS

Renovation). DUS Renovation consisted of an existing three story train station building to

remain historically intact with significant restoration and abatement, including the existing

“Great Hall” which would soon become known as Denver’s “Living Room”. Interior demolition

provided the 127-key boutique Crawford Hotel, associated restaurant uses and supplementary

retail on the ground floor, space requirements of Amtrak, and new conference space on the lower

level. Other major interior modifications to the building included structural additions to the

previous mezzanine level between the ground and second floor to create a four-story building

adding space for more rooms. The project also afforded new life-safety systems, such as fire

alarm and atrium emergency smoke evacuation systems. All new electrical systems included:

distribution/service (3000A, 480/277v, 3phase, 4-wire), generator, lighting/controls, LED

lamping and fixture retrofitting providing energy savings and branch wiring to be upgraded to

current building codes and appropriately designed for the proposed uses.

Use of Building Information Modeling (BIM)

It goes without saying that with a renovation of this magnitude, the coordination process would

be a challenge, and, in anticipation of this, our goal was to do our part to make it the most

productive. Most major issues stemmed from having to coordinate with an existing structure that

was very unforgiving. Part of our plan to mitigate the issues the structure presented was use of

our BIM Department. Using the total station to layout core locations for the main feeders from

the transformer on a vertical wall was especially challenging because these conduits entered the

top section of the switch gear and we had very tight clearances. The lack of control and grid lines

rendered it impossible to identify these locations by hand, because of this we utilized our Total

Station technology to coordinate a 3D model of these locations and place with a laser for utmost

accuracy. BIM was also utilized for all the underground and electrical room layouts, two major

risers, raceway for pipe laid in new foundation, all electrical systems and substantial

prefabricated transformer, switchgear, and generator layouts.

Design Build Input and Benefits

LEI worked collaboratively with Union Station Alliance and the hotel technology group to

design one of the most advanced technological hotels with regards to low voltage and lighting

systems and work within a budget to provide the most up to date cost savings. Significant

features of these systems include:

• A large portion of cost benefit analysis was the lighting systems. By providing LED

solutions that were not originally thought of, LEI offered many options which would

generate long term savings. This included the complete retrofit lamping of existing

fixtures to an LED lamp. In addition, because so many of the designs were custom,

several months of meetings through design phase were required to finalize the lighting

design. Because this item was such a large portion of the work, it was crucial to savings.

Because inefficient lamping would not work, we were able to maintain original design

intent of the fixtures and only reengineered how they were wired to provide for LED

solutions. Although the upfront cost to achieve this exists, the attractive payback period

for the owner including lower energy bills, energy savings points and lower cost

maintenance was more attractive in the long run.

• Brand new, state of the art lighting fixtures also need technologically advanced controls.

We worked with Cooper Lighting and provided an iPad application for lighting controls.

This option provided the freedom to control different zones of the hotel remotely from

iPads, which allows Hotel Staff to maintain appropriate lighting levels and speaker

volumes from anywhere in the building.

• iPad conference room solution in which an Apple System controls everything- this design

helped gain more for the budget.

• Coordination with Mechanical for BAS Controls.

Timeliness

In order to maintain a very compressed, ever tightening schedule, we had to set the bar high for

ourselves. We kept ahead of schedule by setting internal deadlines so we could stay one step

ahead of external requests. Although difficult, we were able to maintain this and very few

deadlines were missed. Additionally, all new switches and outlets had to be installed, 60% of

which was in existing historically sound walls requiring extensive pre-planning to account for

unique installation techniques and constantly changing wall layouts- nothing a little innovation

couldn’t handle. With many unforeseen details, typical means and methods were just undoable.

LEI found constant schedule updating as one of the most important aspects of successfully

delivering the project on time and within budget. A cost based schedule was created by using a

Work Breakdown Structure to match pay applications, as well as an issues log which acted as a

means of identifying areas requiring extra careful planning. Additional time sensitive constraints

included:

• In reality this was four jobsites in one (construction surrounded 10-15 feet of all sides).

Amtrack had to finish much earlier and could be in full operation - maintaining fire alarm

system, power, and lighting systems to keep it functional - while construction was still

finishing (6 months).

• Tenants were quickly finishing and fed from all our main power, including an extensive

water feature

• Structural redesign of the building and abatement causing a schedule impact of five

months

• Everything had to be stored offsite – there was no room to bring material in and we had

to schedule weekly deliveries from our warehouse to be coordinated on a very busy

jobsite. Mitigation for this included storing all materials with our vendors then releasing

as necessary to the jobsite on a weekly basis

• With every step complicated schedules were met. Staying on top of issues and knowing

what we needed ahead of time helped us meet the most important milestones, including:

o Clinton Global Initiative Soft Opening

o Grand opening

o Many special events held throughout the process of the project

Quality Management

Considering the dynamic historical aspects of the building, extensive use of prefabrication

methods, channeling, and keeping channel and route wiring plaster on brick was required to keep

the Great Hall surfaces, as well as 3rd and 4th floor ceilings’ historical aspects. In a lot of cases,

the ceilings were ornate, walls were made of old plaster, and brick were hard and brittle to work

with, necessitating ½” channels, hammer drills, grinders, and flying plaster in lieu of surface

mounting methods. Due to the labor intensive nature of the job, planning and coordination were

crucial to accomplishing this task. Another special attention quality matter included historic and

structurally sound flooring, which could not be disturbed. Lighting installations required

specialized lifts, floor boxes; and pole lights all requiring special consideration.

Lighting

As previously mentioned, the lighting for this monumental project was important and required

coordination between LEI and many other people, including the City and County of Denver,

three lighting designers, National Historic Preservation, two architects, RTD, Amtrack, Milender

White Construction, Denver Historic District, LoDo, and Union Station Alliance. This team

collaboratively worked on the following:

• Three chandeliers for the Great Hall designed in Denver from scratch using original

photos and drawings. They were manufactured in over 300 pieces and 1400 lbs. per

fixture and shipped to Denver for assembly and installed onsite by LEI. Due to their

size they could not be installed in one solid unit and required a phased install, where

sections were put together on the ground, including the lamping and wiring, before

raising off the floor. Because they were shipped in many pieces and installed 40 ft. in

the air, an electric hoist system was required to maintain them and the two thousand

pound wenches.

o First phase - decorative lift motor and 800lb chain were assembled (each link was

hand hung one at a time) and the top section of the fixture manufactured on

ground. The fixture was attached to the chain then raised 10-15 ft. off the ground

o Second section was maneuvered to the first canopy where all of the lamping was

installed inside and raised again.

o Lastly, the bottom section was affixed to the middle then hoisted the remaining 30

ft. up

• Off-site coordination with custom furniture necessitating built in power and switches to

line up after be installed in units

• Extensive exterior lighting was also very important and nightly mock-ups were done to

guide decisions.

• Other unique lighting throughout the hotel included:

• Rather large in-room lights, 68 historical refurbished and repurposed lamps

throughout the corridors of the hotel

• Pretzel-like tungsten chandeliers, which contained135 unassembled pieces of

crystal

• A pendant type train whistle fixture (literally made of train whistles) which was

extremely difficult to hang due to that fact that it was composed entirely of brass,

along with special mounting in historic plaster, requiring extra sturdy raceway in

order to handle the weight.