City of Rochester: Sister Cities Municipal Parking Garage
Background
The Sister Cities Municipal Parking Garage, constructed in 1990, is a 338,500 square foot parking structure with approximately 1,000 parking spaces. The garage serves the four corners area of downtown Rochester, including City Hall and Monroe County and federal buildings. The original lighting system consisted of over 600 high pressure sodium fixtures, operating without lighting controls. An energy audit performed in 2010 recommended replacing the existing lighting system with new energy efficient fluorescent lighting and lighting controls.
Prior to commencing with the municipal garage energy audits, operation of the garages had been under contracts with independent garage operators. The terms of the operators’ contracts removed any financial benefit for the city to perform upgrades. Subsequently, the operation of four of the audited garages was converted to internal city operation by the Bureau of Municipal Parking, which included control of utility bills and provided incentive to the city to pursue energy efficiency upgrades.
Solutions
Utilizing funding available through the DOE Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, a new lighting system was designed for the City of Rochester by LaBella Associates and installed by Hewitt Young Electric.The project, which began in October 2012 and was completed in April 2013, includes a combination of high performance T-8 fluorescent fixtures in the interior parking areas and LED fixtures on the rooftop, stairways and building exterior. Lighting controls consisting of occupancy sensors and timing were also installed.
Sister Cities Garage was the fourth garage upgraded utilizing EECBG funding. During this project, the City worked with the local utility, Rochester Gas and Electric, to meet the requirements to obtain a performance-based energy efficiency incentive. High performance T-8 fluorescent and LED lighting meeting the performance criteria were specified in the contract documents and a cost/energy reduction ratio was met. As a result, the City received a $117,900.00 incentive payment from the utility once the project was successfully completed.
Other Benefits
The City of Rochester is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions not only through energy efficiency projects, but also through the promotion of low carbon alternative fuel vehicles. As part of a grant received from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the City installed electric vehicle charging stations in the Sister Cities Garage in 2014, offering four charging ports for plug-in electric vehicles. Charging stations were also installed in three other municipal parking garages, City Hall, the Rochester Public Market and the Port of Rochester for a total of twenty-four charging ports.
Image Gallery
Sister Cities Municipal Parking Garage
Sister Cities Municipal Parking Garage entrance
Vehicle charging at Sister Cities garage
