City of Orlando Kia Center Retro-Commissioning

Project Summary

The Kia Center in Orlando, Florida, is home to the NBA’s Orlando Magic, the Solar Bears hockey team and the Predators arena football club. The facility, formerly known as the Amway Center, also hosts concerts and other major public events.

The city of Orlando determined a need for the 875,000-square-foot building to undergo a retro-commissioning (RCx) study and selected Hanson to provide the services. The purpose of the study was to assist in the development of facility improvement measures (FIMs) and indicate the potential for annual operational savings, cost to implement and a simple payback.

To accomplish these goals, Hanson reviewed the building automation system; surveyed the building; reviewed available construction documents and controls shop drawings, taking preliminary test and balance measurements of selected equipment; and conducted functional performance testing of sampled systems and equipment.

The Kia Center is a highly visible arena with a busy schedule, and the Hanson team was able to facilitate its work accordingly. During the RCx investigation, Hanson identified 250 facility improvement measures grouped into 13 classifications. Most of these findings were within the building automation system (BAS) and involved releasing points in manual override, implementing schedules for the HVAC equipment and repairing controls terminal devices. Hanson found that the BAS hardware was at the end of its service life and recommended an upgrade or replacement of the BAS controls and separation of the smoke control system from the BAS. Several systems were not able to be evaluated due to limitations imposed by support staff and tenants.

Along with repairs to the existing BAS and returning its operations to fully automatic, Hanson identified several improvements to the sequences of operations, including static pressure and discharge air temperature reset routines.