Project Highlight: SUNY Fredonia Mason Hall

June 18, 2024

Mason Hall houses the School of Music at SUNY Fredonia and underwent a multi-year renovation project encompassing a multitude of both architectural and mechanical upgrades.  Our mission in this project was to replace the indoor air handler units with efficiency, as to not cause any conflicts with the other renovations going on simultaneously.

Our major challenges were logistics and space.  The units we were replacing were designed to be shipped in pieces and built on site, which is fine during a wide open new-build project but challenging when the building is currently in use.  Further complicating the matter was the relatively small mechanical rooms that house the units; not a ton of space to work.  We worked out the logistics of another site-build, but quickly found that the equipment and labor costs rose far beyond our customer’s budget.  It was time to get creative.

Our solution was to design custom AHUs that could be pre-assembled at the factory, yet also able to be rigged into their appropriate mechanical rooms with no need for re-working of the existing building services.  The solution was not easy, but with lots of due diligence and constant contact with both our custom AHU manufacturer (Haakon) and the mechanical contractor, we were able to accomplish our goal.  As a bonus, we also designed the units such that the connections back to the existing mechanical systems were simplified.

The benefit to SUNY Fredonia was not only cost-savings on equipment and labor, but that the project was completed with minimal disruptions and delivered on schedule.  The benefit to the mechanical contractor was constant support from MCS; the fact that we went beyond basic equipment supply and were there every step of the way to assure success.

–Sal Gorino, Managing Partner, Buffalo