Located on New York Ave in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of Brooklyn, luxury condo developers, HELLO Living, have begun construction on a new 7-story, 30,000 square foot, residential facility, cleverly dubbed “Hello New York”. The development will consist (40) luxury units with large private terraces, private elevators and parking. EP Engineering designed the MEP systems for this building, including the high efficiency central air conditioning systems, new electrical service, fire/standpipe service and fire alarm system.
651 New York Avenue Luxury Condos
Engineering challenges
- Mechanically ventilating apartments due to high construction that utilized high performance doors, windows and insulation.
- Design separate air conditioning systems for each apartment, while reducing the construction costs.
- Minimizing the spatial requirements of the cellar utility rooms to limit the square footage being excavated.
Engineering outcomes
- Central Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) systems were utilized to ventilate the apartments. These systems transfer energy from the toilet exhaust to temper the air entering the building, thus saving energy.
- Since all condensing units had to go on the roof, the building takes advantage of VRF (variable refrigerant flow) systems which allow multiple apartments to connect to the same condenser, thus limiting installation costs and also energy usage.
- The size of the electrical and sprinkler rooms was kept to a minimum by sharing required clearance areas in these narrow rooms.