Athene USA, (formerly Aviva USA) the world’s fifth largest insurance group, built a new U.S. corporate headquarters in West Des Moines, Iowa. The building accommodates more than 1,200 employees and is LEED Gold certified. The building features an open floor design for flexibility in arranging office layout and also includes a fitness center, print room, training rooms and a full-service kitchen with servery and dining area. Advanced technology systems were provided for in the video conferencing and large training rooms. Additional designs include underfloor air distribution with energy recovery wheels to reduce cooling loads, a chiller plant with capability of providing “free” cooling water in the winter, outdoor walking paths, three ponds, and an amphitheater. 

There is an advanced stairwell pressurization system using large coiling fire doors with monitoring and controls for the fire department. A secure perimeter utilizes card readers and digital cameras and a secure vestibule is used for entry into the data center. The data center also has an FM 200 clean agent fire protection system and an early warning air sampling smoke detection system. 

An onsite emergency generator provides 100% back up power, including lighting, plug loads and HVAC for operations on select floor to allow critical operations to continue during extended power outages. Due to the proximity of the building with other structures, a UL Listed lightning protection system was incorporated.  

The open office lighting uses an automatic daylight harvesting system for ambient lighting which is supplemented by individual workstation task lights to reduce overall energy consumption. To help meet the tight schedule, the general contractor and MEP contractors were brought on board early to start the construction while it was still in design.