A heating, ventilation, or air conditioning (HVAC) system for a building includes airside HVAC equipment configured to provide heating or cooling to one or more building spaces and one or more controllers. The one or more controllers are configured to generate airside energy targets for the one or more building spaces using a heat transfer model that defines a relationship between the airside energy targets, a temperature of the one or more building spaces, and a thermal capacitance of the one or more building spaces. The one or more controllers are configured to control the airside HVAC equipment in accordance with the airside energy targets.