New Two-Story Elementary School

IMEG provided engineering design for the Muscatine Community School District’s new, 64,000-sf Jefferson Elementary School. The two-story structure replaced an outdated, 86-year-old facility. The existing adjacent middle school on the same site remained. The utility transformer had to be replaced in order to serve the new elementary school and the existing middle school. 

The first floor of the school includes the main entrance, a separate entrance for pre-kindergarten, and a multi-purpose room that includes the cafeteria and gymnasium. The second floor includes classrooms, a music room separated for sound isolation, an art room, media center, and special education rooms. 

IMEG provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, technology, and fire protection design, along with construction administration and energy modeling services. The new school features geothermal heating and cooling via a vertical-bore 160-ton geothermal heat pump system. Other sustainable features include daylight harvesting, LED lighting, occupancy sensors, and building automation system controls. 

Space cooling is provided by individual heat pumps and ventilation air is provided by a dedicated outside air system with energy recovery wheels within the units. The classrooms were designed with vertical heat pumps located in a closet off the corridor to allow maintenance to occur without interrupting classes. 

The plumbing system was designed with point-of-use heaters near the fixtures to save piping cost. This eliminated most of the hot water and hot water circulation within the building. 

The classrooms were designed with dimmable LED lighting with daylight harvesting allowing reduced energy consumption when possible. Multiple light switching is provided to give flexible lighting options within the space. 

Challenges included site utility planning and tying the new infrastructure systems with existing systems.