The Gateway Park II project consisted of a four story, multi-tenant building designed for the occupation of two tenants per floor along with a mechanical basement space. The building is 83,300 gross square feet, and a combination of laboratory and office space with an additional 3,650 square feet of two-story annex space at the ground level. The first floor is occupied by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Department of Fire Protection Engineering (WPI FPE) and the WPI School of Business (WPI SOB). The WPI FPE space is a mix of office/lab space while WPI SOB consists of office space. As part of the WPI FPE space, the building annex contains a Burn Lab to perform controlled burn scenarios for research and analysis purposes. The second floor consists of two lab spaces for various research, development and training in the field of Biotechnology.
The most unique aspect of the project was focused on the Burn Lab used for Fire Protection research. The lab includes a natural gas fired torch used to ignite specific materials for analysis. A 20 ft. by 20 ft. canopy hood, along with two dedicated exhaust fans, are employed for exhausting smoke from the lab space. The burn lab is protected using high temperature automatic sprinkler heads if an “uncontrolled” fire was to occur. A manual operated deluge system was also provided to suppress a fire in the event of an emergency. Other aspects of the WPI FPE space include several centrally piped, specialty gas systems, supplied from cylinder banks and regulator stations for connection to analysis equipment.
The mechanical basement houses tenant and base building equipment with capacity for future equipment such as Air Compressors, Vacuum Pumps, pH Adjustment Systems and Pure Water Systems to serve future tenant infills.
