520 Church St. | 12-Story Residential [Under Construction]

[Jvest55]

Cool. Some of the units there will have a nice 4th of july show from their windows.

[IAmFloridaBorn]

[jrs2]

[bqknight]

[Jvest55]

As of this Monday

 

[Jvest55]

With all the new residents this will bring, I wonder if somebody will have the smart idea to add a stop sign on S Osecola when driving down E Jackson. Its been an accident waiting to happen for too long and I don't predict it will get better.

Further, Summerlin is about to get very, very, very backed up during rush-hour once this building is complete. I wonder what they plan to do about it. I'd say you almost need a traffic light at the terminating end of Mariposa st and S Summerlin or perhaps E Church St and S Summerlin, because during rush hour you cannot get onto Summerlin as nobody will let you turn left or right. onto it. 

[prahaboheme]

I think a roundabout would solve that problem.

[codypet]

On 2/5/2020 at 12:21 PM, Jvest55 said:

As of this Monday

 

Wow that seems so inefficient to me.  Wouldn't chilled water be better?

[AmIReal]

58 minutes ago, codypet said:

Wow that seems so inefficient to me.  Wouldn't chilled water be better?

Absolutely my 1st thought. There are several options they could have taken that were better than this- from an installation, operations and maintenance perspective. This is planned "future costs" that the developer intends to pass along to the next buyer.

[Jvest55]

Yeah maybe, though, the Chilled Water system can be expensive too. The roof HVAC system is down-right ugly.  In the picture above they are still in their "boxes" but they will eventually be black like 420. No doubt that these take a beating with the sun and heat hitting them all day long. 

Before 420 there weren't any buildings in downtown with this setup, but now 520 will be another. This is a bad trend.

Truly ruins the top-down view for sure. 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Jvest55

[codypet]

Nora has it too.

[aent]

Does the chilled water system allow individual unit billing for their AC system? And is it still economical if you meter each unit seperately? That very well could be the reason they chose not to use it... I know from my experience with shared meters for apartments/condos, the perceived value of the water being included in the rent is near $0... if another unit is generally equal and one is $20/month cheaper then the one that doesn't include water in the rent, most people will choose the one that doesn't include water in the rent, even if the water bill will be $50/month.

[bqknight]

56 minutes ago, aent said:

Does the chilled water system allow individual unit billing for their AC system? And is it still economical if you meter each unit seperately? That very well could be the reason they chose not to use it... I know from my experience with shared meters for apartments/condos, the perceived value of the water being included in the rent is near $0... if another unit is generally equal and one is $20/month cheaper then the one that doesn't include water in the rent, most people will choose the one that doesn't include water in the rent, even if the water bill will be $50/month.

55W has a chilled water system and my OUC bill was 2X what it is where I am now without chilled water. I mean, I was paying $150-$180/mo for a 1 bedroom. Was ridiculous. 

Edited February 8, 2020 by bqknight

[Jvest55]

19 hours ago, aent said:

Does the chilled water system allow individual unit billing for their AC system? And is it still economical if you meter each unit seperately? That very well could be the reason they chose not to use it... I know from my experience with shared meters for apartments/condos, the perceived value of the water being included in the rent is near $0... if another unit is generally equal and one is $20/month cheaper then the one that doesn't include water in the rent, most people will choose the one that doesn't include water in the rent, even if the water bill will be $50/month.

That's how it works for us. As long as the unit is working properly it should in theory be cheaper, but there are some things that can make the payment spiral out of control as bqknight suggested. There is some complex math (multipliers) in the billing that can trip a building up if they are not aware of how it works. 

[nite owℓ]

I thought the point of OUC expanding their chilled water system was to further the city's green [in name only] initiative. HVAC is factored into a building's ability to qualify for LEED certification/tax breaks and chilled water is more energy efficient. There are a few apartments, condos, hotels already on chilled water: 55 West, Cityview Apartments, The Vue, The Metropolitan, The Plaza, Star Tower, The Grand Bohemian, etc. I believe each unit can be "metered" but the common areas are also covered by chilled water so I'm sure there are various billing scenarios where the entire bill is divvied up by the # of units.

There was a time when some utility bills were over $500 at 55W but it was blamed on faulty meters on the consumer's end and subsequently repaired https://www.wftv.com/news/man-blames-55-west-for-pricey-utility-bill/286552011. At one time The Plaza's commercial units had to sue OUC in order to keep the chilled water from being shut off due to non-payment of a significant balance owed https://www.wftv.com/news/ouc-may-turn-off-ac-to-downtown-building/286630838.

OUC not only charges you for chilled water usage, but they also use a DeltaT factor (temperature difference) to charge more money if the water temperature returned to the plant is not within an optimum range. They supply chilled water at 38-40 degrees and they want the water returned at 53-55 degrees. Also you're charged if you go above/below the agreed upon capacity. Seems like a lot of fees being thrown around, but to be fair OUC built the chiller plants w/customer's usage in mind so I imagine any deviation will have an affect on the way the plants were designed to function and force OUC to take additional measures to deal with variances. I guess the biggest benefit for getting on OUC's chilled water service is that you have less "moving parts" to maintain when you forgo an on-site chiller and you receive year-round uninterrupted service. I guess the only con would be that they don't reverse the system using heat recovery to supply heating in the winter.

Pg 2 shows OUC's the loop diagram w/DeltaT and chilled water customers (however, the list should probably be updated since it does not list all participating apartments/condos within the CBD for some reason): https://www.ouc.com/docs/customer-brochures/broc_commercial_oucooling.pdf?sfvrsn=b67bc092_0

Addtl info: https://www.ouc.com/business/ouconvenient-lighting-oucooling/oucooling

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by nite owℓ

[AmIReal]

2 hours ago, nite owℓ said:

but they also use a DeltaT factor (temperature difference) to charge more money if the water temperature returned to the plant is not within an optimum range.

That is a pretty standard practice. They require the builder to put back end chillers into the loop as it decreases the overall costs to operate. For the builder is SHOULD still be cheaper to operate. I'm not sure OUC has quite mastered the chilled water thingy yet and I'm not really not sure it is the optimal solution for our climate zone.

[nite owℓ]

Yes it is standard practice, but I said all of that to explain how some customers might wind up with higher charges especially if their building has vacant units or the equipment isn't adequately calibrated, chilled water lines aren't properly insulated, etc.

[Jvest55]

Yes, good explanation. In short, the developer just takes the ez route and puts monstrous looking black noisy cubes on top of their properties. 

[aent]

5 hours ago, AmIReal said:

That is a pretty standard practice. They require the builder to put back end chillers into the loop as it decreases the overall costs to operate. For the builder is SHOULD still be cheaper to operate. I'm not sure OUC has quite mastered the chilled water thingy yet and I'm not really not sure it is the optimal solution for our climate zone.

So do they actually list pricing anywhere? I see some other utilities charge per BTU, which seems to make more sense to me then whats being described here. They calculate the BTU as number of gallons of flow times the average temperature difference of the input/output, times whatever coefficient they need to figure out the number of BTUs to recool that water.

My understanding is that we seem pretty ideal climate for chilled water, no? Its supposed to be far more efficient to cool a large amount of water at once (and the heat generated by that process can be captured and either heat water for selling hot water or turn a turbine to use power, or both and having trigeneration). And for the vast majority of the year, we only need cooling and no heating (I personally have literally never used the heat while I've lived in Orlando, if your insulation is reasonable there is really no need at all to).

I was curious because I know traditionally natural gas is more efficient and cheaper for heating water, but most apartments/condos don't have it, as the cost of having the utility meter it separately, or trying to put it into the rent removes all economic incentive from doing so. I was wondering if that is what was going on here.

 

[AmIReal]

8 hours ago, aent said:

So do they actually list pricing anywhere? I see some other utilities charge per BTU, which seems to make more sense to me then whats being described here. They calculate the BTU as number of gallons of flow times the average temperature difference of the input/output, times whatever coefficient they need to figure out the number of BTUs to recool that water.

My understanding is that we seem pretty ideal climate for chilled water, no? Its supposed to be far more efficient to cool a large amount of water at once (and the heat generated by that process can be captured and either heat water for selling hot water or turn a turbine to use power, or both and having trigeneration). And for the vast majority of the year, we only need cooling and no heating (I personally have literally never used the heat while I've lived in Orlando, if your insulation is reasonable there is really no need at all to).

I was curious because I know traditionally natural gas is more efficient and cheaper for heating water, but most apartments/condos don't have it, as the cost of having the utility meter it separately, or trying to put it into the rent removes all economic incentive from doing so. I was wondering if that is what was going on here.

 

I've not seen pricing. Maybe if someone has a bill it would show what they are billing for. I seem to remember one of our posters posted a photo of their power bill from 55W, but that was a year or 2 ago and I can't remember who it was (I think it was Andy).

Each unit has a separate air handler and each of those is metered, but I don't know if they are calculating power consumption or some blend of that and water flow (likely this by way of formula).

I think the problem with our climate is insulation of exposed lines which exposes the water to 80-90 degree air. Best case scenario is everything is installed perfectly and you don't have those issues. OTOH, ITRW...

Some cities are getting away from gas. SF banned it due to safety issues.

[jack]

11 hours ago, Jvest55 said:

Yes, good explanation. In short, the developer just takes the ez route and puts monstrous looking black noisy cubes on top of their properties. 

It costs more upfront to use condensers but as stated above, chilled water costs more in the long run. 520 would have saved money upfront if they went with chilled water. 

[nite owℓ]

22 hours ago, aent said:

So do they actually list pricing anywhere? I see some other utilities charge per BTU, which seems to make more sense to me then whats being described here. They calculate the BTU as number of gallons of flow times the average temperature difference of the input/output, times whatever coefficient they need to figure out the number of BTUs to recool that water.

I believe everything is also spelled out on the chilled water service agreement. Also I probably got it wrong, the diagram I linked to earlier shows the BTU meter but maybe the DeltaT is probably checked closer to the customer's side. My building is on chilled water and I've inquired about the system w/my HOA in the past, but TBH even they had difficulty describing everything since HVAC is not our background. A quick google search led to this explanation, "We measure chilled water in ten gallon increments, and add a temperature differential, the Delta T. We bill for true consumption, not square footage.  Then Delta T Factor is a reflection of how well the Condo Management is running their internal building cooling controls." https://www.smart-energy.com/regional-news/north-america/ouc-the-reliable-one/

 

14 hours ago, AmIReal said:

I've not seen pricing. Maybe if someone has a bill it would show what they are billing for. I seem to remember one of our posters posted a photo of their power bill from 55W, but that was a year or 2 ago and I can't remember who it was (I think it was Andy).

Found Andy's post of an old bill while he was living at 55W:

On 6/18/2019 at 11:45 AM, AndyPok1 said:

Yup!  Here's a random bill from July 2016

 

[AmIReal]

8 hours ago, nite owℓ said:

Found Andy's post of an old bill while he was living at 55W:

So the "magic" happens in the Multiplier. I'd like to see that formula.

[bqknight]

8 hours ago, nite owℓ said:

I believe everything is also spelled out on the chilled water service agreement. Also I probably got it wrong, the diagram I linked to earlier shows the BTU meter but maybe the DeltaT is probably checked closer to the customer's side. My building is on chilled water and I've inquired about the system w/my HOA in the past, but TBH even they had difficulty describing everything since HVAC is not our background. A quick google search led to this explanation, "We measure chilled water in ten gallon increments, and add a temperature differential, the Delta T. We bill for true consumption, not square footage.  Then Delta T Factor is a reflection of how well the Condo Management is running their internal building cooling controls." https://www.smart-energy.com/regional-news/north-america/ouc-the-reliable-one/

 

Found Andy's post of an old bill while he was living at 55W:

 

Yup - that's what mine was like at 55W. Horrible. I assume it's still like that but an extra $100 a month is no joke. 

[AndyPok1]

Was so confused what I was being quoted on haha.

No idea why you think its an "extra $100".  The price seems super fair to me... $167 for electric covering a 1100sqft 2/2 in the middle of summer?  My 3/2 1300sqft is costing about the same amount.... after I installed new central A/C for $10k and replaced all the windows with energy efficient ones for $6k...