Knox Place Student Housing is an 806,000 square foot facility with five levels of secured parking, seven levels of housing, fourteen townhouse apartments and six retail shops. Knox Place is located between Sixteenth Street and James Agee and between White Avenue and Clinch Street.

Each living unit features keyless entry, individual keyed entry to bedrooms, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, range, garbage disposal, washer and dryer. Bedrooms are individually leased to tenants.

Amenities offered include wireless internet in common areas, state of the art fitness center, activity center with theatre, pool tables, courtyard with gas grills and picnic tables, computer labs and lounge on every residential floor.

Knox Place is secured with card access entry gates at parking entry.

Electrical Systems:

The building is served from three KUB transformers, two at 208 volt and one at 480 volt. There are two 4000 amp 208 volt services that serve residential units and one 2500 amp 480 volt service for house power. There is also a 400 amp 208 volt three phase service that feeds townhouse units. Power is distributed to residential units from three 2000 amp bus duct risers that feeds meter packs on each floor, individual apartments are fed from the meter packs.

The six retail spaces are fed from one of the 4000 amp services. Emergency power is from a 650 kw 480 volt diesel generator which feeds four elevators, fire pump, egress lighting and fire/security equipment. 

Systems:

The electrical contract included fire alarm, card access, door and gate control, closed circuit TV, voice and data wiring, and wireless internet system. We used Edwards Fireworks software to control fire alarm, card access and CCTV.

Building Systems Technology (BST), in a subcontract with Shoffner Mechanical, has participated in the UT Knox Place in a design-build and project management capacity. BST is a fire alarm and security systems integrator with a Fire Protection Engineer on staff with AutoCAD draftsmen, NICET certified technicians, Installation Department, and ISO9001:2000 Quality System.

Edwards BST 

In order to meet local codes, BST had re-designed the fire alarm system, in accordance with the architectural engineers design intent, to alleviate code deficiencies well before construction schedule. Our project management had resolved daily issues with the result of meeting the overall construction schedule and budget.

 BST, as an EST Strategic Partner, installed EST’s premier network product, the EST3 Life Safety System with Integrated Security and Access Control. Because the EST3 security devices are also UL864 Listed for Commercial Fire, and because all lock power supplies are power-limited, this enabled the Owner to save tens of thousands of dollars by providing one common conduit system for all power limited system wiring. 

The Life Safety and Access Control system is centrally monitored in the Security Office with a “Fireworks” graphic workstation. The “Fireworks” station provides an on-line representation of status of alarms and monitor events throughout the facility with AutoCAD floor plans with animated icons, a prioritized and color-coded event list, an acknowledgement screen by which guards can type in responses, and an image screen which displays cameras related to the particular active event. CCTV integration provides a means by which fire or security events trigger camera selection for the security guard on the same interface. All cameras are controlled through a matrix switch for user-friendly control.

Total man hours - 65,000 with peak manpower of 35 electricians                                           $3,600,000.00