Rincon Tribal Administration Building

Coffman provided structural, mechanical, electrical, and fire protection engineering for the design of a new two-story, 42,700 sf administration building for the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians in Valley Center, California. The building contains a large general meeting space, offices, council chambers, security, a kitchen, and other support spaces.

The structural design consists of a steel structure with both wide flange and open web steel roof and floor joists on a conventional shallow foundation. Steel joist girders are utilized to span the large general meeting space to allow for an open floor plan. Special concentrically braced frames serve as the lateral force-resisting system to resist the high seismic forces in the area. A flexible roof diaphragm and rigid floor diaphragm transfers lateral forces to the frames and other steel drag elements that make the complex geometry of the floor diaphragm and low roofs possible.

The mechanical system consists of three variable air volume rooftop units and terminal units with hot water reheat for zone temperature control.

The electrical design for this facility incorporates power, lighting, and communications. The main power service to the building is an 800A, 480V/277 service, which is broken into two branches because a portion of the facility is required to operate on a 24/7 schedule. This need is being met by installing an emergency generator to maintain power in the required areas. The lighting design for the building incorporates LED luminaires with a low voltage lighting control system to meet current occupancy and daylighting requirements. A fire sprinkler and alarm design was also provided.