Hospital Corporation of America’s (HCA) business growth and new opportunities to provide network services to outside clients has resulted in the need for a new Data Center to be built in Nashville, Tennessee. The goal of this project was to build and maintain the most flexible and efficient “state of the art” data center for this site. The project substantially elevates the overall quality and effectiveness of HCA data center design and serves as a project process and documentation model for future HCA critical facility projects.
The new data center is located on a tiered 53-acre site. The 90,000-square-foot, one-story building is located on the upper tier of the site, with parking located on the lower tier. A two-story entrance vestibule facilitates access to the building from the lower parking level. Critical building elements and infrastructure are hardened to resist EF-3 tornados and debris impacts. The hardened structure encloses the white space, a control room and critical infrastructure. As the requirements for the office space are less stringent, the office portion of the building structure is not hardened. The project creates 6MW of IT load capacity over 30,000 square feet of white space while providing reliability to Tier III industry standards.
The critical systems designs incorporate modern and innovative engineering solutions including: 1) Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Systems, 2) 415 VAC electrical distribution to racks without use of PDUs, 3) Hot Aisle Containments, 4) Water-cooled central plant with elevated chilled water temperatures and waterside economizers to maximize free cooling, and 5) Exhaust air energy recovery from battery room ventilation systems. The anticipated annual PUE for the facility is less than 1.4 with a low instantaneous PUE of less than 1.3.
The site is master planned to accommodate future expansion of 6MW IT load over an additional 30,000 square feet. Future expansion options include an additional building with a scope similar to this project or possibly a container solution. The utility infrastructure for the site will be provided by a new 161 kV substation that is located onsite. The substation provides power to the new data center, future data center and any other future site buildings.
The exterior architectural design conforms to the current HCA building and branding standards in order to maintain continuity between this project and other HCA buildings and sites. The project has achieved LEED certification. Due to the importance and financial benefit of this project for HCA, it was delivered using a “fast track” design-build approach in order to expedite the completion and start-up. Page partnered with DPR Construction and completed the project in June 2013.
