The Rogers Centre of Excellence (COE) is the nerve-centre of their television, special events and radio networks. It houses the consolidated master control facilities in a non-traditional open-plan control room which enables “follow me monitoring” allowing staff to monitor signals from anywhere in the space to support special programming without interfering with day to day operations. The primary spaces of the 15,000ft² facility are located on the 3rd floor of 1 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, and includes a redundant data centre for Sportsnet in 333 Bloor Street East suitable for almost 100 racks.

The HIDI Group provided mechanical, electrical and security systems design for the facility, while lighting was provided by Alula Lighting Design and commissioning of the project was carried out by HRCx, the divisions of The HIDI Group.

The guiding principles for the design of mechanical and electric systems for this mission-critical 24/7 facility were redundancy and reliability. Accordingly, instead of using the building’s existing system as the primary source (which normally operates during regular working hours), a separate air-cooled chilled water generation plant was designed with 2n redundancy on chillers and pumps, and generator backed power supply. As an additional back-up, the building’s existing chilled water system was connected through a valving arrangement to the new system – a belts-and-braces measure fully warranted by the critical nature of the facility. The CRAC units serving data centres were also specified to meet n+1 criterion.

In a similar vein, the electrical power distribution infrastructure serving the facility, and the associated mechanical plant, was designed as “concurrently maintainable” with two separate power distribution boards with transfer switches – i.e. a 2n level of redundancy, which would meet relevant Tier III requirements. The power supply for the facility was backed by the building’s existing n+1 configuration UPS and generators. Further, the emergency lighting system design allowed the facility to continue functioning in the event of failure of the normal lighting system.

In keeping with the nature of the facility, the entire space was designed with a double-interlock pre-action sprinkler system to protect the high value systems while minimizing risk of accidental water damage.

Whilst the primary focus was on reliability and redundancy, energy efficiency was ensured by incorporating water-side free cooling through the air-cooled chillers. Also, the entire design was accomplished to stringent acoustic criteria typical of high-end control centres.