NYPA Robert Moses State Park Nature Center

Our team provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection design and construction administration services along with building energy modeling and LEED/green design support and commissioning services for the new $7 million, 10,000 square foot Nature Center. This project replaced the Nature Center, administrative offices and storage building that were heavily damaged in a fire. 

The facility includes exhibits and classroom areas providing a natural science education for the public, schools and community groups. The project was designed to achieve LEED Silver certification (LEED BD+C: New Construction v2009). 

Our team was challenged in the LEED design process to look beyond the obvious choice of electric heat because there was no gas service to the site. Four different HVAC systems were modeled: 

• VAV system with energy recovery ventilation with electric preheat
• Water source heat pump (WSHP) system (electric boiler) with energy recovery ventilation
• Air source heat pumps with energy recovery and with electric pre-heat
• Ground source heat pumps (GSHP – geothermal) with energy recovery ventilation and demand control ventilation

The HVAC comparison resulted in the GSHP (geothermal) system being selected. The system has approximately 30 tons of cooling capacity and utilizes vertical wells for the exchange of heat. The system requires two pumps for the wells and two circulating pumps for the various indoor systems. Conditioning of the indoor spaces were done with different styles of heat pumps with variable speed compressors and fans. Preliminary calculations showed this system to be approximately 30% more energy efficient than the base case system, which translated to an estimated 10 LEED points. The classrooms, exhibit hall and storage space are cooled, ventilated, and final heating provided by vertical heat pumps with energy recovery wheels. Electrical design for the exhibit hall included specialty feature lighting.