Weber BMW
Northwest Corner of Palm and Herndon, Fresno
The owners of this dealership were focused on creating the finest facility of its kind in the United States to house new car sales, used car sales and service and repair for BMWs. They visited other dealerships across the country to see what was considered state-of-the-art and brought back photos of the best. The architect used bits and pieces of the photos to create a truly distinctive building.
The final design was 24,000 square feet in size with a two-story office looking down on the new car showroom. The entire east wall of the showroom is continuous twenty-two foot high glazing that maximizes the impact of the new cars inside. To optimize the value created with new car sales and energy costs, four different glazing types were considered. The HVAC systems were sized for each option and energy consumption was estimated using software specially created for this purpose.
The building is structurally very unique and many unanticipated conditions were discovered during construction. Also, during the construction the owner requested many changes to the building, some affecting the HVAC. However, the HVAC was completed with zero change orders.
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