Civic & Government
Central Juvenile Hall HVAC, Central Plant & Campus Renovations
Campus-wide HVAC and central plant overhaul at an occupied juvenile facility.
Client
LA County Internal Services Department
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Service Line
A century-old, occupied juvenile hall modernized building by building across several concurrent job-order contracts — HVAC, a new central plant, roofing, interiors, lighting controls, and ADA sitework.
It’s the County’s oldest juvenile hall. The job was keeping it running and making it better for the kids inside it — across however many buildings and contracts it took.
-Richard Chiera, executive vice president
Central Juvenile Hall opened in 1912 — the first juvenile detention facility in Los Angeles County, and still in use more than a century later. A campus that old, spread across some 22 acres of living units, infirmaries, schools, gymnasiums, a kitchen, and a chapel, needs a lot, and it needed it all at once. Athena did the range of it: mechanical, central plant, roofing, interiors, lighting and controls, and accessibility — building by building, across several County job-order contracts running concurrently, while the facility stayed open.
In the dormitories (Buildings 10A, 16, and 17), Athena replaced the HVAC and the roofs together: new rooftop units with gas heat, economizers, and DDC on 16 and 17, new split-system heat pumps in 10A, fresh ductwork and controls throughout, and new Class-A modified-bitumen roofing over all three. Where occupants couldn’t be moved, we brought in temporary cooling so the units stayed livable through the work.
A new central plant, swapped in without losing cooling.
The campus also needed a new heart. Athena replaced the central plant as prime: a 90-ton Trane chiller, two 150-ton cooling towers, new condenser-water pumps and variable-frequency drives, and DDC controls, phasing the crane work so the towers came out and went back one at a time, keeping cooling on the whole way through. And the new mechanical (the dorm units and the central plant alike) was integrated onto Johnson Controls Facility Explorer, the same County standard the rest of LA County’s facilities report into.
Beyond the mechanical, Athena ran the general construction: interior renovations in the living units and common areas, anti-ligature doors and hardware, new flooring and finishes, LED lighting with wireless lighting controls, and the ADA sitework (ramps, grading, accessible paving and signage) to bring the old campus up to code. All of it on a secure, occupied site, where every worker was screened and badged and escorted, and the daily report was due by nine.
This was the same County effort that took Athena to Barry J. Nidorf and Los Padrinos, with youth moved between facilities while the work got done. At Central, the job was keeping a 110-year-old hall running and making it better for the young people inside it, one building at a time.
Client: County of Los Angeles, Internal Services Department (for the Probation Department). Delivery: Concurrent Job Order Contracts — Athena as prime / general contractor. Scope: HVAC replacement and roofing for dormitory Buildings 10A, 16, and 17; central-plant replacement (90-ton Trane chiller, two 150-ton cooling towers, condenser-water pumps and VFDs, DDC controls), integrated onto Johnson Controls Facility Explorer; interior renovations; LED lighting and wireless lighting controls; and ADA sitework — self-performed by Athena Engineering at an occupied, secure facility.
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