Hotel and Event Center Expansion

IMEG was retained to provide mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and structural engineering services for the design of a 170,000-sf, 8-story mixed used hotel, event center, and casino expansion to the existing FireKeepers® Casino located in Battle Creek, Michigan. Comprised of 250 guestrooms, seven stories of hotel tower sit atop a new restaurant and bar, commercial kitchen area, pool and leisure spa, fitness and business centers, grand entrance lobby, casino gaming floor, and laundry services. The attached event center, over 25,000-sf altogether, consists of a performance stage, ballroom, and multi-use assembly spaces. The expansion also added onto the existing bingo hall and provided an additional 25,000-sf of back-of-house garage/storage area to the facility. The engineering design met a very aggressive design schedule and was drawn entirely in Revit 3D modeling software.

A central chilled water plant serves the entire facility and consists of two 400-ton water-cooled chillers and one 100-ton air cooled chiller. The combination of chiller types allows for year-round chilled water functionality without operating a Cooling tower in the winter. Heating is provided with heating water from five 3,000- MBH high-efficiency condensing boilers.

Heating and chilled water are distributed to several AHU’s and vertical fan-coil units located in each guest room.

Energy savings are maximized by utilizing two custom 100% outside air energy recovery units to provide ventilation air to the hotel rooms while recovering air from each bathroom’s exhaust.