The Centene Community Ice Center is a new, multi-purpose community facility featuring four (4) outdoor rinks ice sheet community ice facility supporting various local teams from the new practice home of the St. Louis Blues, practice and home game venue for the Lindenwood University Women’s and Men’s hockey teams, the St. Louis Lady Cyclones, and other community adult/youth hockey leagues and recreational skating activities, and more. The facility also operates two (2) full-service kitchens with make-up air and hood exhaust systems supporting general concessions and 314 Social Eats + Drinks restaurants.
Murphy was selected by Arco Construction Company Inc. to provide engineering, budget estimating, and construction services for Ice Refrigeration and supporting general building HVAC systems. The current site is the second of two considered locations. Murphy’s engineering and construction estimating capacity and experience were able to maintain budgets established in 2017 until a final site selection was decided in 2018.
Murphy’s engineers provided energy modeling services to confirm compliance with the energy code for the 277,000-square-foot facility. The general HVAC building heating and cooling was accomplished with the use of 360- tons of constant volume direct expansion packaged rooftop units with gas heat and ducted air distribution, 30 -tons of dedicated split systems with electric heat ducted air distribution, 85- tons of variable air volume systems utilizing fan terminal units with electric heat, cooling only VAVs for zone control and ducted air distribution, 40- tons of direct expansion dedicated 100% outdoor air units with energy recovery enthalpy wheels and gas heat for locker rooms with direct ducted supply and exhaust air distribution, 60,000 combined cfm of desiccant dehumidification units with gas-fired regeneration heat sized to maintain 60 degrees and 40% RH to maintain humidity levels in the ice rinks year-round with ducted air distribution.
Murphy Company / B32 Engineering Group partnership collaborated to provide a cost-effective, and constructible solution tailored to expedite schedule by utilizing third-party manufacturer M&M Refrigeration Inc. to fabricate a 480- ton Ammonia refrigeration plant skid with heat recovery for ice production, sub-floor heating systems, and two snow melt systems for the ice resurface machines utilizing a remote evaporative cooler. This effort allowed for design and construction together to ensure the skid met the intent of B32 Engineering Group design while providing equipment that would fit within the limits of viable site access, reducing the time needed to build a traditional central plant refrigeration system, accelerating the installation schedule by delivering equipment to align with the 5-month delay in the HVAC / Refrigeration installation schedule impacted by weather and general building design delays.
