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USF Project?

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Does anybody know what's in the buildings behind Diagon?
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A nice wee 2.5 acre plot of land if they decided to expand Diagon.

If possible this would be beyond overkill. Phase 3 coming at IOA with enough land left over for a Phase 4 and then Phase 5 here.

That building in the middle of your red circle appears to be a chiller/central energy plant. I'm assuming that based on the cooling towers that are visible. This building would hold large chillers to cool water and large pumps to convey it around the park. The purpose of this chilled water is for air conditioning the buildings in the parks.

There is another chiller plant by IOA. When you ride Dragon Challenge, just as you start down the main drop, look straight ahead and you'll see an industrial building with several cooler towers beside it that look similar to the one you circled.

I've also noticed them at some of the hotels. There is one at Portofino next to the employee/service parking lot (corner of Vineland and Kirkman). Hard Rock Hotel has one adjacent to the building by the larger surface parking lot (the lot on your right as you pull into the main entrance off of Universal Blvd.) Royal Pacific has one behind the convention hall (drive down the road that takes you under the elevated walkway between Sapphire Falls and Royal Pacific and after maybe a half mile the chiller plant is on your left). Cabana Bay has one on the back side of the main building (pull into the service drive off of Turkey Lake Rd and it's to the left). I haven't seen one at Sapphire Falls, so they either have one that is well hidden or they have their mechanical equipment on the roof, hidden from view behind the parapet walls.
 
That building in the middle of your red circle appears to be a chiller/central energy plant. I'm assuming that based on the cooling towers that are visible. This building would hold large chillers to cool water and large pumps to convey it around the park. The purpose of this chilled water is for air conditioning the buildings in the parks.

There is another chiller plant by IOA. When you ride Dragon Challenge, just as you start down the main drop, look straight ahead and you'll see an industrial building with several cooler towers beside it that look similar to the one you circled.

I've also noticed them at some of the hotels. There is one at Portofino next to the employee/service parking lot (corner of Vineland and Kirkman). Hard Rock Hotel has one adjacent to the building by the larger surface parking lot (the lot on your right as you pull into the main entrance off of Universal Blvd.) Royal Pacific has one behind the convention hall (drive down the road that takes you under the elevated walkway between Sapphire Falls and Royal Pacific and after maybe a half mile the chiller plant is on your left). Cabana Bay has one on the back side of the main building (pull into the service drive off of Turkey Lake Rd and it's to the left). I haven't seen one at Sapphire Falls, so they either have one that is well hidden or they have their mechanical equipment on the roof, hidden from view behind the parapet walls.

Really? That sounds incredibly inefficient.
 
Really? That sounds incredibly inefficient.

It's actually a pretty efficient way- otherwise, you would need a multitude of smaller cooling towers for each facility- which several actually do have. The purpose of a large central plant is less maintenance, employees, etc that would maintain it. Additionally, the large plant will have several cooling towers within it- so when its August, they will have multiple cooling towers operating, but when it's May- they would use significantly less towers- thereby making it more efficient by running only what is needed. Whereas if each place had it's own tower- itd be running all the time- which could also be running too cool of a temperature as well.

It's very complicated, because most people look at it from a residential home viewpoint- or even a singular commercial building standpoint- whereas this is more like a small city or power plant.
 
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Really? That sounds incredibly inefficient.
I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I don't have the knowledge to lay out all the facts. I know from my experience that once buildings get large enough that more than two standard residential-style compressors are necessary, HVAC designers will begin comparing whether a small chiller would be more cost effective.

I'm working on a project on a small college campus (~1,000 students) that has a chiller plant that is 2,500 tons (1 ton = 12,000 BTU). (A typical household AC is somewhere between 1 to 5 tons.) This campus is much smaller than IOA or USF. I asked out of curiosity how much it would cost if they were running individual AC units for each building. The plant operator said that the energy costs would be around 3 to 4 times as much. It would also mean having a few hundred or thousand AC compressors sitting around the campus, so it wouldn't be practical regardless.

Let me pull this back around to the original topic. The building in question is a necessary building that cannot be located off-site. It is possible that it could be relocated somewhere else onsite, but we're talking 7 or 8 figures (in dollars).
 
I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I don't have the knowledge to lay out all the facts. I know from my experience that once buildings get large enough that more than two standard residential-style compressors are necessary, HVAC designers will begin comparing whether a small chiller would be more cost effective.

I'm working on a project on a small college campus (~1,000 students) that has a chiller plant that is 2,500 tons (1 ton = 12,000 BTU). (A typical household AC is somewhere between 1 to 5 tons.) This campus is much smaller than IOA or USF. I asked out of curiosity how much it would cost if they were running individual AC units for each building. The plant operator said that the energy costs would be around 3 to 4 times as much. It would also mean having a few hundred or thousand AC compressors sitting around the campus, so it wouldn't be practical regardless.

Let me pull this back around to the original topic. The building in question is a necessary building that cannot be located off-site. It is possible that it could be relocated somewhere else onsite, but we're talking 7 or 8 figures (in dollars).

This is why I love this forum.
 
I'm an electrician and work with chillers all the time, they are extremely efficient, and the chilled water glycol mixture can be pumped miles. Here in Tampa a plant will cover all the buildings in a new 40 acre redevelopment.
Jeff Vinik plans to clear the rooftops of his Tampa development by going underground | Tampa Bay Times
I like that you picked this article to share. Colleagues in my company's Tampa office did the chiller plant analysis for this project in 2015 and are currently under contract to provide construction inspection services for the plant and piping. So if anyone in the Universal C-suite is reading this, give me a call and we can discuss how we can relocate some of your existing infrastructure to free up some much needed space!
 
I'm late to the conversation, but the Central Business District in Orlando (plus some of North Quarter) is all connected to a publicly owned chiller system underneath the city. It apparently saved a lot of space in these newer downtown areas when compared to the older downtown districts.
 
So from everything that's been said...

-It will affect HHN
-It's not E.T.

Shrek closing?
Fear Factor live is being demolished?
 
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