Owner's Rep — Data Center Campus

An owner's representative firm was overseeing the design of a two-building data center campus in Northern Virginia's Data Center Alley. Data center construction demands extreme coordination precision — power distribution systems, cooling infrastructure, and structural loading requirements create a web of interdependencies where a single missed conflict can cascade into weeks of delay and hundreds of thousands in change orders.

The design featured redundant power feeds with automatic transfer switches, hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment systems, and raised floor plenums for underfloor cooling distribution. The structural engineer had designed the floors for 250 PSF live load, but several areas where the electrical engineer had placed transformer banks and UPS systems exceeded that loading when the equipment weights from the specifications were cross-referenced against the structural drawings.

The owner's rep team needed an independent verification of the design coordination before approving the 60% design development package — but their two-person team couldn't manually review the 800+ sheet drawing set within the two-week review window.

The owner's rep team uploaded the full drawing set to Helonic, including architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection sheets for both buildings. The analysis focused on the three areas that drive the majority of data center change orders: power distribution coordination, cooling system routing, and structural load verification.

Helonic identified 2,100+ issues across both buildings. The most critical findings included: 156 instances where electrical equipment weights exceeded the structural floor loading at specific locations; 234 cooling distribution conflicts where chilled water piping routes crossed through cable tray corridors; and 89 fire suppression system clearance issues in server hall zones where sprinkler heads were positioned below the hot-aisle containment panels.

The analysis also flagged 312 coordination issues between the two buildings' shared utility infrastructure — generator yard routing, chilled water interconnects, and fiber pathway conflicts that spanned both buildings but had been designed by different engineering teams.

The owner's rep team presented Helonic's findings to the design team as a structured review package, organized by priority and discipline. The 156 structural loading issues alone represented an estimated $890,000 in potential change orders — because relocating transformer banks and UPS systems after the structural slab is poured requires costly structural modifications, temporary shoring, and schedule delays.

By catching these issues at the 60% DD stage, the design team was able to resolve the loading conflicts by adjusting equipment locations and adding structural reinforcement in the drawings — at a fraction of the cost of field modifications. The cooling distribution conflicts were similarly resolved by redesigning pipe routing before construction documents were issued.

The owner's rep team reported that Helonic's analysis gave them the confidence to approve the 60% package with specific conditions, rather than rejecting it outright and adding a full review cycle. This kept the project on its aggressive 18-month delivery schedule.