801 Grand Lighting

801 Grand has a prominent presence in the Des Moines skyline. The 970,000 sq ft building of executive office spaces and retails spaces is 44 stories tall and towers over downtown Des Moines. Upgrading the exterior floodlighting from metal halide to LED was desired for several reasons. Energy savings, maintenance, lighting levels and distribution, and the color of the light.

Upgrading fixtures from high-pressure sodium to LED gave the owner a total reduction of 62,120 watts which in turn helped with energy savings. We replaced the 400w & 1000w sources with sources of 170w through 421w.

Maintenance of fixtures went from 6.8 years (replacing lamps) to 28.9 years because of the life of LEDs.

Finding a light color to blend in with the materials of the building was a high priority. We wanted to find something that accentuated the finishes, not overpower or wash them out. To find the right color, we mocked up the different color temperatures.

A big concern with these new LED fixtures was if they would get hot enough to melt snow that would build up on top of them when in an uplight application. The locations of some of the fixtures were not convenient for someone to clean the snow off.  MODUS and Trivalent Lighting mocked up fixtures from different manufacturers outside of his house for several days, testing if snow would melt off of the fixtures.