San Diego County Operations

The Campus Center Building at the new San Diego County Operations Center is designed to be a symbol of sustainability. This meeting area and food service facility features a rooftop terrace, a vegetated green roof, and photovoltaic solar panel arrays on trellises, which also serve as shade producers. It is no surprise that this building is also LEED® Platinum certified.

The Campus Center is surrounded by four buildings and is part of the County Operations Center, a new 1.2 million-square-foot complex of government office buildings, laboratories and a parking structure. The Campus Center is designed to be an area where workers and visitors can meet, eat a meal or just enjoy the fresh air. The one-story building houses the Chamber, a large assembly room, the Commons, a commercial kitchen and indoor and outdoor dining areas.

As Brian Knochenhauer, developer at Lowe Enterprises of San Diego, stated, “The County Operations Center demonstrates the County’s commitment to a sustainable and well-designed government campus that provides long-term value to the many users of the campus.”

Deciding which roofing and waterproofing systems to use on this very visible and energy-efficient structure was an easy decision for Jeff Redlitz, project manager at the Department of General Services for the County of San Diego. When he was hired by the county, one of his first charges was to select a roof standard for the larger buildings owned by the County of San Diego.

Brian Schmitt, construction manager at RJC Architects, Inc., in San Diego, agreed with Redlitz’s recommendation. “We’ve used Sarnafil roofing systems for years and find it to be a good product for this local climate,” he remarked.

The installation of the Campus Center roof involved many different roof levels and roofing substrates. There was a second floor terrace area that required a waterproofing membrane and full pedestal paver system, two sloped garden roof areas and roofing systems on the rooftop mechanical enclosure, as well as the elevator tower and lobby.

Eberhard Benton Roofing of San Diego faced many challenges during the installation. One was passing all the requirements of the owner’s insurance.

One major challenge was with the green roof. “A metal subcontractor was supposed to create a smooth transition with metal crickets, but they were not able to get them right at all four locations. At those locations, there was a step down from the sloped metal deck to the concrete substrate,” Choi explained.

Eberhard Benton Roofing solved the problem by adding custom field-fabricated 25 PSI extruded polystyrene and gypsum board adhered with Sarnacol® 2163 adhesive at the step-down areas, creating smooth transitions. Then they installed a full pedestal paver system to provide smooth walkways.

“We also found out that the stairs weren’t at the height we expected, so we had to remove and create a transition with custom tapered insulation. The pavers had to be flush within a quarter of an inch for everything to be ADA compliant,” stated Jim Lifgren, vice president and general manager at Eberhard Benton Roofing.

The roof used an Electronic Field Vector Mapping® (EFVM) system – a leak detection system that uses low voltage electricity to identify breaches on the roof. “This is the first time we’ve used it in San Diego, and it was quite impressive,” Lifgren said. “Concrete decks hold the water until it finds a hole through the concrete, like at drains or vent pipes. This pinpoints the location of the leak.”

“Sika technical representatives reviewed the system during installation and upon completion,” stated Knochenhauer. “They also provided support to the architect during the design process.”

The work of Eberhard Benton Roofing also received note. “This installation had a lot of interesting flashing details and lots of penetrations due to skylights, solar tubes, irrigation lines and roof vents,” explained Schmitt. “However, there have been no problems thanks to the work of Eberhard Benton Roofing.”

It was this professionalism and attention to detail that earned Eberhard Benton Roofing third place in the Waterproofing Category of Sika Sarnafil’s 2012 Project of the Year competition.

The Campus Center roof continues to live up to expectations. “We went through some very rainy periods, giving the roof nature’s own water test, but I recently went up to look at the roof and it looked perfect,” Lifgren remarked.

“Like our other Sika roofs, this roof is performing well,” Redlitz said. “I’ve installed over half a million square feet of Sarnafil over the past 17 years and will continue to do so.”

Added Schmitt, “I certainly would use the Sarnafil system again. I think it is a great product for this climate.”