ML: Helmut Jahn's 50 West Street Breaks Ground in Pursuit of Gold (Video)

Time Equities broke ground in a ceremony back in June on 50 West Street, a 65-story, $600 million, 580,000-square-foot mixed use tower that will rise along Rector Street, just a few blocks south of the World Trade Center site. The New York-based developer anticipates LEED Gold certification for the project upon a 2011 completion date. The base of 50 West Street will include a 5-star hotel offering 155 units, as well as retail space, with 280 condominium units sitting above.

Designed by Helmut Jahn, the project will include a variety of sustainable design features ranging from automated blinds to a green roof, efficient plumbing fixtures, and renewable and recycled-content construction materials specified by architects of record Gruzen Samton. The tower's high-performance glass facade will allow daylight to penetrate deep into the core and simultaneously prevent thermal loss through the perimeter. The developer coordinated its abatement and demolition efforts with the Environmental Protection Agency and other local agencies. In connection with the project, Time Equities is also building a pedestrian connection across West Street, linking the southern portion of Battery Park City and the western edge of the Financial District.

50 West will be Jahn's first executed design here in New York City since the CitySpire back in 1987. Time Equities is donating $4.6 million to the Department of Housing and Development's affordable housing preservation fund, $350,000 to the New York City Board of Education in support of a Lower East Side Space Sciences Center, and $430,000 to P.S./I.S. 89 to create a computer science program. The developer also coordinated its abatement and demolition efforts with the Environmental Protection Agency and other local agencies.

Founded in 1966, Time Equities holds a portfolio featuring 20.4 million square feet of residential, commercial, and industrial property. The company hopes to be carbon neutral in its corporate operations by the close of 2009, and is currently implementing a number of sustanable initiatives designed to reduce the carbon footprint of its real estate portfolio by 20 percent by 2010.

Check out a video documenting the ceremonial groundbreaking, as well as some of the tower's sustainable features, via the link below.

• Video- 50 West Street Groundbreaking (YouTube)
• Developer Breaks Ground on Green Hotel (NYO)
• 50 West Street (gbNYC)

ML is short for our weekly Monday LEEDoff™ column, which typically profiles a different LEED project generally in (but not limited to) the New York City area. You can access an archive of profiled projects via this link.