Vornado Realty Trust pulled two DOB permits on October 5 for work on the 12th-floor mechanical equipment room at 1 Penn Plaza, and the scope tells a familiar story for an aging Manhattan office tower trying to stay competitive: rip out the steam chiller and replace it with a water-source heat pump system.
Fresh Meadow Mechanical Corp and Mass Contracting Corp are the two contractors named on the filings, which carry a combined estimated cost of $3,466,069 across the two jobs — one for general construction, one for mechanical systems. The scope includes partial demolition of the existing steam chiller and its piping before the new heat-pump equipment and distribution lines go in.
Steam-to-heat-pump conversions are becoming a standard retrofit move in older Midtown towers as landlords face both aging steam infrastructure and pressure from Local Law 97 emissions limits — a building this size has real exposure to that law's carbon caps, and swapping a steam chiller for a heat pump is one of the more direct ways to cut a tower's reported emissions.
For mechanical contractors and controls subs working the Midtown office market, this is evidence that 1 Penn Plaza's capital program is actively spending on MEP infrastructure right now, not just planning it — a live jobsite with two named contractors already mobilized. If you do HVAC distribution, piping, or controls work in large commercial towers, Fresh Meadow Mechanical and Mass Contracting are the two outfits currently inside the building's 12th-floor MER.
The work is documented in the DOB's own permit filings; there's no separate capital-plan announcement from Vornado tied to this specific scope. Expect follow-on permits for electrical work tied to the new heat pump's power draw, which is common on conversions of this type.