National Conservation Training Center (NCTC)

Shepherdstown, West Virginia | US Fish and Wildlife Service

Serving as a training facility for government and other natural resource organizations, the NCTC comprises offices and 25 classrooms on a 500-acre campus. The NCTC hosts groups of up to 300 people and offers courses provided by in-house and visiting natural resource professionals. To support the FWS mission, D&K has provided evaluation and design for projects that focus on reducing energy cost and enhancing capacity and flexibility. We evaluated lighting control systems throughout the campus and developed a narrative and designs to install and upgrade systems, such as occupancy sensors and timing to optimize lighting energy use; this project also included design for EV charging stations. Our team helped the FWS with design to renovate the West Pond Office facility, which upgraded building mechanical and electrical systems and, with the help of an architect partner, reconfigured spaces to add classrooms. D&K also provided design for a new fabric-covered outdoor classroom space. For ease of maintenance and in the case of a failure, D&K designed a bypass system for the Commons Building’s hot and chilled water pipes, which were originally installed beneath the building’s slab.

Markets:

Project Elements

• Campus-wide lighting controls evaluation and design
• Bypass of campus hot and chilled water service located under large building
• New fabric-covered outdoor classroom facility
• Renovation of a 9,000-SF office building to add classroom space and upgrade building systems

Sustainable Elements

D&K designed new lighting controls to reduce overall energy use.
The outdoor classroom space provides an option to host large groups with using less resources for initial construction and less energy for operation and maintenance.