Union Bank & Trust Omaha: Banking on Connections
Project Overview
Project Name
Union Bank & Trust Office Building – 144th Street and West Dodge Road
Size
147,280 GSF
Market Sector
Corporate
Client
Union Bank & Trust
Team
Clark & Enersen
The site and public spaces are designed with a focus on creating a welcoming experience for customers while the interiors provide a state-of-the-art banking-focused design with an eye toward the future. – Clark & Enersen
In an effort to expand its footprint in Omaha, Lincoln-based Union Bank & Trust (UBT) dedicated itself to the creation of the UBT commercial office building located within the cutting-edge, up-and-coming Heartwood Preserve development. The five-story structure currently hosts two tenants. The building is complete with a dedicated welcome center for bank patrons, along with sleek and modern offices, shared workspaces, kitchen areas, and conference/training rooms.
IP Design Group was selected by architecture firm Clark & Enersen to complete both the project’s core and shell and tenant improvements regarding low-voltage technology, including supporting infrastructure design for electronic security and audiovisual systems as well as telecommunication systems design. The project’s needs made necessary the use of secured structured cabling solutions in order to mitigate the risk of data breaches and other malicious hardware/software cybersecurity threats.
Raising the Bar on Horizontal Cabling
UBT utilizes the lower level, first, and half of the fifth floors for their employees and guests whole two other tenants occupy space on other floors. The lower level consists of an office/waiting room shared space. The first floor hosts the welcome center, highlighted by decorative ceiling spaces and high visibility areas that curate UBT’s vision for a professional, sleek, and modern space. Additionally, the remainder of the first and entirety of the fifth floor are dedicated to employee workspaces, including collaboration hubs, training rooms, conference areas, personal offices, and breakrooms. The second, fourth, and portions of the fifth floors belong to guest tenants and include private offices, shared workspace areas, and conference rooms/training areas.
In order to best honor the visual impact in the first-floor welcome center, our team coordinated the discrete and functional placement of cable trays and other necessary infrastructure pathways away from high-traffic areas. Dalton Rabe RCDD, WiredScore AP, SmartScore AP is a technology systems designer who was involved in ensuring the low-voltage technology’s functional needs were met while honoring the architect’s vision.
“We didn’t want to distract from the immense amount of effort put into the visual aesthetic of that first-floor space,” Dalton explained, “Which is why we worked hard to ensure the cable trays were coordinated discretely and away from highly visible areas.”
Workspaces and other areas requiring network connectivity, such as conference rooms and training spaces, received horizontal cabling through raised-access flooring. This horizontal cabling method was provided on every floor to ensure the building provided versatile workspace configurations. A more accommodating workspace allows the Owner to attract a larger pool of potential tenants. Additionally, the building can also keep pace with the rapidly evolving nature of technological capabilities and can be updated to the latest and greatest telecommunication hardware with relative ease. The team was also able to create a diverse entrance for service providers, which allowed for a versatile solution for network connectivity.
A Unique Low-Voltage Approach
Some of the more unique applications regarding the provision of electronic security rough-ins on the site involved the bank vault alarm system. Our team provided junction boxes with conduits for the vault alarm system that connects to their main space on the first floor.
“It was interesting finding solutions for the bank vault alarm system since vault manufacturers are hesitant to share details on their product’s configurations,” Dalton explained, “This allows them to continue to make products that keep people’s valuables safe. Allowing for diverse vault alarm system connections keeps the bank’s options open for adequate electronic security technology.”
An owner objective that was relevant throughout the design was crafting secure networking solutions with hyper-specific access points. Our team provided multiple clients with secure and continuous pathways between floors for backbone cabling within telecommunications riser rooms.
“In order to keep our clients and their customers’ data protected, providing continuous run cabling meant that no one can access data hardware without specific clearance,” Dalton explained, “This makes the spaces highly desirable for clients in finance and other data-sensitive industries.”
The continuous and protected pathways also had to be routed from the riser room to secured data rooms, which required extensive collaboration with the architect to ensure that data runs remained secure throughout the entire building.
“Not even the service providers that could come in and establish internet connectivity could access those data cables,” Dalton finished, “It was imperative to keep the data cabling completely secure.”
Safe and Sound
The utilization of secure, continuous-run pathways is a rarity in the low-voltage design industry. However, with the right team, versatile connectivity and client-friendly data applications were designed for the UBT commercial office building to support the technology of today and tomorrow to fit the needs of an ever-evolving workforce.
Interested in learning more? Get in contact with our team.