When Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) recognized it was time to replace its 50-year-old Central Utility Plant (CUP) with a new, modernized facility, the airport knew who they would look to first. Arup had successfully delivered LAX projects for more than a decade, and won the contract to fulfill full architecture, engineering and commissioning services for this $438m project.  

Arup collaborated with Gruen Associates as a subconsultant team to contractor /McCarthy A Joint Venture (CMAJV). When presented with the original RFP briefing, Arup specialists began looking at new ways to deliver the project at lower cost. This included relocating the CUP’s cooling towers onto an adjacent disused site, which eliminated the need for a basement; moving CUP staff’s offices into the main building, freeing up space for an above-ground thermal energy storage tank, eliminating the need for excavation.    Our designs in the competition phase included substantial changes to the original RFP briefing which resulted in nearly $20m savings in capital costs – a 6% cost savings over the other team in the public competition’s third step. These changes, which optimised the use of equipment space, required significantly less construction and generated substantial savings.   

Structural engineering 

The new Central Utility Plant (CUP) consists of three main architectural elements - a four-story building that contains the plant and staff offices, an above-ground cylindrical chilled water storage tank that rises nearly three stories, and a low-rise structure with maintenance shops on the ground floor and cooling towers above. The first phase of the plant, which serves the recently renovated and expanded Tom Bradley International Terminal, came online in July of 2013. The remaining eight terminals, the Theme Building, and the Administration Building followed in stages. 

Behind the metal panel and glass façade of the new CUP is 20,000 tons of cooling capacity to supply all eight LAX terminals delivered by a plant that includes electric-driven centrifugal chillers, heat recovery boilers, primary and secondary chilled water pumps, cooling towers, and thermal energy storage. An 8.4MW cogeneration plant consists of gas-turbine-driven generators providing electricity and so-called ‘waste’ heat used for heating and to power additional steam-driven chillers. Arup’s scope also included engineer-of-record services for utility distribution and piping upgrades to pump rooms at each terminal. The CUP design incorporated spare capacity for future capital improvements at LAX. 

Los Angeles Airpot, central utility render
The new CUP consists of three main architectural elements - a four-story building, an above-ground cylindrical chilled water storage tank, and a low-rise structure with maintenance shops on the ground floor and cooling towers above.