The smaller equipment room saved approximately $38,000 in construction costs. While the savings is a small percentage of the Plano, Texas-based contractor team's cost-cutting hvac system, other design innovation proposals definitely caught the eye of the Plano Parks & Recreation Department. With Oak Point Center now taking a high profile position as one of the top five largest and certainly one of the most state-of-the-art recreation facilities in Texas, the design team's innovations may change the face of future natatorium hvac design.
Much of the credit goes to the project's design consortium consisting of the architect firm, Brinkley Sargent Architects (Dallas); consulting engineering firm, G and S Consulting Engineers LLC (Dallas); and mechanical contractor, H & G Systems, Inc. (Garland, TX). The consortium specified a newly developed swimming pool dehumidifier by Dectron Internationale (Roswell, GA). The equipment choice saved several hundred square feet of valuable space by eliminating conventional and bulky swimming pool water heaters normally located in a natatorium's pool equipment room.