McCormick Place West Hall Conference Center Stormwater Reclamation Tunnel and 'Green Roof' helps advance Chicago’s Clean Water Agenda

摘要

The McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago has undergone adramatic expansion to remain one of the premier convention venues in this country.The new West Hall designers recognized early on that the City combined sewersystem was beyond capacity resulting in periodic flooding and overflow to theChicago River. The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) initiallyconsidered traditional stormwater management alternatives including onsite detentionand new gravity sewers to manage runoff from 70 acres of convention center rooftop.MPEA decided to pursue a “green” approach to stormwater management tocomplement other environmentally sensitive design features employed at this project.AECOM devised a stormwater conveyance system that would carry clean rain waterfrom the convention center roof to Lake Michigan thereby diverting as much as 55million gallons of stormwater from the City’s combined sewer system each year.