New AAA location in former Best building.

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With plenty of free parking, plenty of space and immediate availability, the empty Best Products retail store east of York had substantial appeal. The site's proximity to transportation (less than a mile from route 30 and Interstate 83) also made it a winner.

For a client in the travel, insurance and emergency road service business, the drawback seemed to be the building itself, which was basically a big box configured for retail sales and warehouse space.

Half a year later, with construction of BASCO Associate's design for reuse of the old store completed, the building offers AAA/Southern Pennsylvania a perfect new home and the reuse of an empty 63,000 square foot store makes very good sense.

York is corporate headquarters for the Southern Pennsylvania Region of AAA, serving members in the southern tier counties from York west to Clinton County and north to Johnstown. The new facility will be home to those corporate headquarters along with people and services from three other locations in the York area.

Reuse of the former Best Products store offers the motor club an opportunity to establish a very large member service area within a building that also houses emergency road service and a warehouse for travel-related materials and displays.

One entrance of the reconstructed store serves customers and members while the other leads to the regional corporate headquarters. Employees and delivery activities will utilize other side entrances.

"One of our prime concerns is member service," said AAA Board Member Dan Hess. "This new location offers ease of parking for our members and customers as well as our employees."

"It's an excellent business location in an area where activity is growing and more and more people will find it convenient to let us serve them."

AAA will also have room for very large travel theme displays. People won't feel like they're standing in line because there will be so much to look at. The entire member area is designed to be a lot more customer conscious.

BASCO's design for new HVAC equipment loads on the existing structure eliminated costly steel reinforcing and called for only minor framing.

The office building features improved energy efficiency, minimal environmental impacts, better indoor air quality, and high levels of functional performance and flexibility. Abundant outside air circulation provides fresh air and a health environment to those inside.

Energy Recovery Units (ERU) provide building owners with a low-maintenance system that features long range reliability and lower long-term energy expenditures for heating and cooling. Heat energy that would normally be lost will be recovered by a total enthalpy heat wheel system. In fact, 25 to 30 percent of the energy AAA will need will come from recovery of energy from exhaust air.

In winter months, the energy recovered from exhaust air will be used to preheat incoming fresh air. Moisture in the air is also saved, reducing energy costs from humidifying indoor air in cold weather.

During summer, the humidity and temperature of incoming air will be reduced by the heat wheel -- lowering the cooling load on the air conditioning system.

Control of relative humidity year round reduces the spread of organisms that cause employee illnesses. That climate control, coupled with filtration to remove dirt, dust and organisms, will also provided longer computer equipment life and reliability.

Flush valves in lavatories operate with signals from infrared sensors providing automatic operation while they maximize sanitary protection.

The design team also reused the existing electrical service even though it was set up with a split main distribution board and double metering. This was an unusual situation that called for removal of half of the existing switchgear to bring the new service into code compliance. In order to maintain the UL labeling, factory personnel came in to cut the existing bussing in the equipment. Reuse of original electrical systems shortened the construction period and shaved ten percent off the cost of electrical reconstruction.

BASCO reused much of the emergency lighting but replaced all low efficiency equipment such as fluorescent lights and HVAC gear with newer high efficiency systems. As a result, AAA can operate with only half of the original electrical service to the building.

Outfitted with a full sprinkler system, the new AAA headquarters also features an FM-200 fire suppression system to protect people as well as sensitive critical equipment in the computer room. That environmentally friendly system snuffs out an electrical fire deep within electronic equipment without harming people, and provides rapid computer system recovery to minimize any disruptions.

Proximity card readers unlock many of the interior doors, providing control as well as rapid access for authorized individuals.

Six separate sound systems serve the main retail area. They can be used individually or in numerous combinations. Some of those systems will support travel information displays. They can also work together to provide background music throughout the complex.

AAA settled into the new complex and held a public open house the second weekend of November. Comments from members have been positive. They particularly appreciate all the things to see and do. Travel displays and a big screen TV are big hits with people who no longer feel like they're waiting their turn for service.