Earlier this year, the clock was ticking down for the majestic Pacific Bell (or "PacBell") Center in San Ramon, CA. When the center was built in 1985, its owners chose not to integrate the lighting control system with the central energy management system. Instead, they chose to utilize a stand-alone lighting control system that was run from its own computer. And therein lied the problem - the lighting system used in the facility was date dependent, and therefore, not Y2K-compliant.
While the choice to not integrate lighting proved unfortunate, the four-story center was still considered state-of-the-art for its time and included several forward-thinking amenities. One example was the 38,000 miles of conduit, single-strand fiberoptic cable, and single-conductor copper cable to integrate four different communication technologies. Even more uncommon are the 6,688 audio speakers around the building that play "white noise" to minimize the distraction of nearby conversations and work sounds.