Green Depot Manhattan to Open at Bowery Landmark

Brooklyn-based green building materials and products supplier Green Depot announced yesterday that it will begin construction on a 3,000-square-foot Manhattan showroom at 222 Bowery, between Price and Spring Streets. Designed by architects Studio Mapos, the project should get underway on May 1 and will seek a LEED (presumably under Commercial Interiors) Gold or Platinum rating. Details on specific green features at the showroom are unavailable, but Green Depot will also offer patrons a green resource and design center. Founder and CEO Sarah Beatty called the expansion "significant" and "a fundamental recognition of the growing effort amongst customers to make healthier and more eco-friendly living choices." The project should be completed by November and will be Green Depot's sixth- and largest- showroom to date.

The Queen Anne-style 222 Bowery was landmarked in 1998 after an effort that was led by poet and resident John Giorno. The six-story brick-clad building is currently a loft co-op that was the former home of the YMCA’s Young Men’s Institute, which opened in 1885; the tower was designed by architect Bradford Lee Gilbert, a prolific 19th century New York architect whose Dakota Stables on the Upper West Side recently gave way for Robert A.M. Stern’s LEED hopeful Harrison condominium project. Incorporating modern green design elements into historic structures- rather than razing them- is the very definition of sustainable construction. Here’s hoping Green Depot’s resource center acknowledges 222 Bowery’s history in order to make this important point to patrons that are considering their own green projects.

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