On the corner of 45th Street, one block from Times Square, sits the 42-story 1155 Avenue of the Americas Building. The structure's original comfort system consisted of two 700-ton Trane centrifugal chillers, Model CVHB, that were installed in a high second basement level chiller plant. These received condenser-cooling water from two rooftop cooling towers. Chiller water from the plant is delivered to air handlers, one each on alternate floors for the full height of the building. Conditioned air is distributed through a VAV system. The building airside system was converted to direct digital control (DDC) in 1994.

The Durst Organization, owner of the building, began looking at a replacement chiller plant, due in part to the widespread addition of heat-producing office computer equipment. Building cooling requirements had increased and the existing chiller plant was fully loaded. Also, the Durst staff had followed the development of newer, more energy efficient chiller equipment, and saw an opportunity to reduce both total energy usage and peak facility electrical demand. This could be achieved through thermal storage, or through the use of alternates to the use of electricity as a primary energy source. Finally, it was requested that the building be equipped with redundant cooling capacity so that business would not be affected by a possible chiller outage.