On Monday, February 10, 2014 Gavilon opened its new corporate headquarter to the public in a symbolic bell-ringing ceremony. The new headquarters facility in Omaha, Nebraska provides space for up to 700+ employees and incorporates technologies in an innovative manner to improve productivity and efficiency.
Set within the 127,000 square foot facility is a 35,000 square foot trading environment that utilizes virtual desktop technology for 340 of the company's employees. The space, technology, power, and cooling requirements for a typical electronic trading floor can approach up to five times the requirements of typical office space. Therefore, it was understood the design solutions developed for Gavilon would have a significant impact on their overall productivity and efficiency.
Early in the design process, ESD performed a customized total cost of ownership (TCO) study comparing virtual desktop infrastructure and traditional PC desktop environments. The study considered the IT licensing, space, power, and cooling requirements for over 300 employees and projected substantial savings in installation and annual power and cooling costs, along with a significantly lower TCO over a ten-year period of time. "The virtual desktop, which eliminates the need for a high performance desktop, helps cut power use to about one-third of the typical trading floor," said Butch Bennison, Gavilon's director of IT operations.
The trading area sits on a raised floor plenum supported by an onsite chiller plant which supplies cooling and ventilation to the trading floor, private offices, and collaboration spaces. An underfloor air distribution system provides the cooling among the equipment to maintain a comfortable working environment for the traders.
ESD provided pre-lease consulting, MEP conceptual design service for the core and shell, full MEP design services for the tenant interiors, and structured cabling programming and design for the headquarters' development.