Cobrex Provides Best Retro-fit for Restaurant in Historic Manhattan Building

Urbanspace is an 11,000 square foot open floor area permanent food hall near Grand Central Terminal that offers more than 20 artisanal and chef-driven food stalls. Urbanspace Vanderbilt is located in the 34-story Helmsley Building, which was erected in 1929. Named for investor Harry Helmsley, the building is certified LEED Gold for Existing Buildings and was the city’s first pre-war office tower to receive this certification. 2LS Consulting Engineering provided full mechanical, electrical, and plumbing services and food production services for the iconic New York space. Their challenge was providing enough hot water with very little room with which to retrofit the new water heating equipment.

PVI products were selected because of their installation flexibility and proven reliability. 2LS teamed up with Kurt Hazard and Mitch Castell with PVI New York Territory Sales to specify two Cobrex 1800 L 175 A-TCX units that provide 1561 gph of hot water for this very busy food hall and its building which provides 9 psi steam.

Although spacious in the front, the back of house area, where dishwashing and pot washing took place, was small. Placed side by side, the two Cobrex heat exchangers and tanks fit into an area less than 4 feet wide by 13 feet long. Being on separate skids, the installation was greatly simplified by reducing the size and weight of the individual parts. The piping between the tank and heat exchanger was fully fabricated at the factory for simple field installation. The 175 gallon AquaPLEX tanks are only 34” wide and fit through a standard 3-foot doorway.

The Cobrex units continue to perform well and the owners appreciate their industry-leading warranties and clean-in-place fittings with no additional space required for heat exchanger pull out. The water heaters also come standard with electronic controls that connect to a building automation system for periodic temperature reset for tank sterilization, if desired.