Veterans Affairs Skilled Nursing Home

3QC served as the Commissioning Provider for two new residence and health care facilities developed by The Department of Veterans Affairs and constructed as part of a Design-Build (DB) process. These OSHPD facilities, located in Redding and Fresno, are classified as Skilled Nursing Homes and provide both medical and residential care for our country’s veterans. The Redding facility (162,500 SF, $60 million) consists of 150 beds while the Fresno facility (216,000 SF, $118 million) provides 300 beds. Both projects included many innovative and energy efficient systems and achieved LEED Gold (Fresno) and LEED Silver (Redding) certifications. For example, both campus’ mechanical plants include a central utility plant (CUP) including water cooled chillers, cooling towers, boilers and pumps. Administrative buildings and residential units are served by local air handling units, VAVs and fan coils.

The DB strategy for these projects included a formal partnering process to integrate the owner, owner’s consultants and the DB team, reducing project schedule and increasing quality. 3QC’s staff partnered with the criteria AE in the pre-design phase to help detail and document the owner’s project criteria. We then collaborated with the DB team to finalize the project quality control plan and testing standards.

Our commissioning process provided significant value to the Design-Build contractor by helping the team reclaim several lost weeks during early construction through careful coordination of the testing and commissioning schedules. We also provided technical advice for the development of the final DDC control sequences to achieve energy efficiency goals and supplement challenges provided by the controls subcontractor. This effort was particularly successful in Fresno, where we worked so closely with Frank M. Booth that the commissioning process beat the construction schedule by about 25%. Our client, the CA Department of General Services recognized our contribution by giving 3QC a strong letter of reference and subsequently awarded 3QC an IDIQ contract on which we continue to build a strong partnership.