IREA Bennett Operations Facility

Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) is the electric utility cooperative serving suburban, mountain and rural communities in a large area that extends from southwest to east of Denver.  They have had an operations center in the east portion of their service area for many years.  Persistent growth in the towns along I-70 east of Denver prompted IREA to replace their small, outmoded center with a larger new facility to better serve their member customers.

IREA asked LKA to work with them to develop the facility space program and design for a new operations center on a 17 acre site near the interstate highway in the Town of Bennett.

The new location facilitates quicker response for electrical grid emergency repairs.  The expanded facilities and resources improve the ability of the management staff and work crews to perform those repairs as well as better meeting the general customer service needs.

The new building consists of six distinct areas.  The office area houses the customer service representative work space, area manager offices, line crew work stations with support spaces, an emergency response control room and a training room.  There is a vehicle maintenance area with repair bays, work shop and parts / equipment storage rooms.  The other areas are an enclosed, access controlled warehouse; an enclosed, heated vehicle storage garage; a covered, open sided vehicle parking area; a covered material storage area.  Also, a large open material storage yard was developed on the site.