Project Profile: Boathouse District

The Oklahoma River has a vibrant riverside filled with attractions and stunning architecture. The Oklahoma City (OKC) Boathouse District is central to that vibrancy, with six buildings offering athletic training facilities, event spaces, activities for children and adults, and more. All of those facilities need year-round cooling and heating, but they vary widely in square footage and usage. To meet such ranges across its six buildings, it’s no surprise that the five newest Boathouse District buildings use our VRF systems.

Here’s a brief look at those five facilities:

• Devon Boathouse. This designated U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Site has “a little bit of everything across its 33,000 square feet,” said John Riggs, senior director of operations, OKC Boathouse Foundation. A facility with so many spaces, and with each space dedicated to occupant experience, required an HVAC system with advanced controls.
• Chesapeake Finish Line Tower. The requirement to fully conceal all HVAC units – both indoor and outdoor – required a creative solution. In this case, the outdoor units were located in the basement.
• CHK|Central Boathouse. Featuring a performing arts venue, art gallery and workout center, this boathouse has a wide variety of heating loads and unique spaces that all had to be acoustically sound.
• SandRidge Youth Pavilion. This smaller space, with a high-level, contemporary look required the HVAC system to be discreet, while its ranging people loads required flexibility and speed in responding to adjustments.
• RIVERSPORT Rapids. An architectural beauty and HVAC challenge, this space needed cooling and heating for a variety of spaces, and a way to conceal the outdoor units. In this case, the outdoor units were located behind a mechanical screen.

Five projects, five sets of challenges and five success stories. As Riggs said, “Working with the Mitsubishi [Electric] systems has been great. They’re unlike any other systems, and they’re fantastic. Very usable.”

To learn more about the Boathouse District and see images of its stunning buildings, check out the case study.