Customer Profile
In the heart of the Central Business District in Downtown Buffalo, 50 Fountain Plaza is in a prime location between Buffalo’s Entertainment and Theater Districts. The 435,684 sq. ft. multi-purpose office complex currently accommodates a conference facility, a fitness center, a full-service bank branch, and an art gallery.
Customer Challenge
The facility owner sought to integrate energy-efficient electric equipment with an existing cooling tower for summer air treatment in the building. Greater Niagara Mechanical, the installing contractor on the project, partnered with Stark Tech’s HVAC equipment team from Kistler to design and build a make-up air unit replacement with cooling and refrigerant DX reheat coils. The design needed to allow for natural gas heating during the winter months.
Space constraints required a similar footprint of the replacement unit to the pre-existing, gas-heat-only make-up air unit.
The size of the available space in the mechanical room through louvered walls had to be considered in the unit design, which required the air handling unit to be constructed with modular sections.
Stark Tech Solution
Stark Tech’s Equipment team applied a VTS Group modular air handling unit with Samsung HVAC water-source variable refrigerant flow heat recovery systems into the building. The brand new 10,000 CFM air handling unit is equipped with direct expansion cooling and hot gas reheat coils. The unit also has tandem natural gas burner modules.
During cooling operation, energy is recovered by the Samsung VRF system and applied to reheat for energy-efficient dehumidification.
Result
The facility’s ventilation system has improved with energy-efficient dehumidification for increased building and occupant health and comfort.
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