project profile

Size: 200,000 Square Feet
Project Cost: $5 million
Completion Date: 2008

Project Scope:
facility assessment : HVAC upgrade : historic building

The Milwaukee County War Memorial Center is a remarkable monument and museum honoring our war veterans. In addition to the war memorabilia and numerous memorials throughout the space, this landmark building also houses portions of the Milwaukee Art Museum and its storage facilities. Originally designed by Eero Saarinen in the 1950s, by the start of the new century, the historic building was showing the strain of years of additions, renovations, and under-funded maintenance programs.

IBC Engineering Services was commissioned to perform a thorough investigation of the building’s infrastructure, finding problems and potential health threats hidden even to the facility staff. We worked hand in hand with the facility’s maintenance staff to ensure that all concerns were addressed in both the short and long term plans for the facility.

The first priority was to replace the updated mechanical system, taking into consideration the expanding art museum collection. The $5 million upgrade takes advantage of the Center’s lakefront location by utilizing lake water for condensing. This helps to improve the chiller efficiency by 50%, and reducing the overall cooling demand of the building 250 tons.