Orange County Academy of Sciences and Arts proposed to convert an existing five-story office building in Santa Ana, California into a new K–12 school campus. The project involved a change of use from Group B Business occupancy to Group E Educational occupancy for Floors 1 through 4, serving up to 900 students, with approximately 48,395 square feet of tenant improvement work within an existing 62,005-square-foot fully sprinklered building.

Engineering Fire Protection, LLC provided building code consulting services to support the project team during plan review. EFP reviewed the applicable building and fire code requirements, helped develop a clear code interpretation strategy, and supported communication with the City’s building plan reviewer and code officials.

A key challenge was resolving the code official’s requirement of imposing fire-resistance rating for the new seismic retrofit brace members needed as part of the school conversion. Without a clear code interpretation, the project could have been required to add costly fire-resistance protection that is not necessary for the intended function of the retrofit elements. EFP helped the client explain the code basis, respond to plan review comments, and communicate the engineering rationale to the Authority Having Jurisdiction through in-person and online meeting. This support helped reduce uncertainty, avoid unnecessary construction cost, and keep the school conversion project moving forward toward approval.