Standing prominently at the south end of Columbus Circle in Manhattan, the visually striking building that is home to the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) has attracted attention since it first opened in 1964 and later reopened as MAD’s home in 2008.
MAD contends with many of the same issues as other cultural institutions across New York State – high operating costs, critical asset renewal needs, and constrained funding, with an underlying commitment to sustainability. The solution that MAD Museum will implement satisfies all these priorities.
The museum is heated via the ConEd district steam system and cooled via modular rooftop air-source chillers installed when the building was gut-renovated in the early 2000s. The rooftop chillers had been in critical condition for two years, so the museum had to issue an RFP for their replacement. Ecosystem instead proposed a larger heat recovery chiller / heat pump solution that qualifies for a ConEd C&I Clean Heat incentive to help offset the cost of the project, provide the desired asset renewal, and decarbonize all the museum’s space heating loads. The existing 360-ton rooftop chiller will be replaced with a properly sized air-source heat pump with units capable of operating in cooling, heating, or simultaneous heating/cooling mode to respond to the building’s space conditioning needs.
Once complete, the project will achieve full Local Law 97 compliance, and it is an impactful model of a smart asset renewal strategy leading to decarbonization progress.
