NBBJ Earns Manhattan's Ninth LEED-CI Rating at 2 Rector Street

Global architecture firm NBBJ recently earned a LEED Silver rating from USGBC for its new New York City offices at 2 Rector Street downtown. The space is the ninth in Manhattan to cop a LEED for Commercial Interiors rating, and joins a number of other design professional spaces that have earned the designation. Three of NBBJ’s five U.S. offices have now earned LEED certification; the firm’s offices downtown occupy 15,917 square feet across the 25th floor of the 80-year-old building. The firm spent over five months reconfiguring its space, and signed a 10-year lease that takes advantage of a number of tax incentives offered to businesses relocating to Lower Manhattan.

NBBJ principal Timothy Johnson said that the firm “had to solve the puzzle of taking an 80-year-old building with older infrastructure and making it sustainable. With new buildings, you can take cutting-edge steps to achieve ’green’ goals. In our case, we decided that the smartest way to achieve sustainability would be to find ways to minimize energy consumption.” Among other LEED-standard features, NBBJ installed water fixtures that are 36 percent more efficient than code and took advantage of the space’s extensive natural daylighting and operable windows. Individual work stations have personal thermostats, and the firm is monitoring energy use and HVAC system performance.

• NBBJ New York Expands
• LEED-CI Archive (gbNYC)