Rough Tuesday for Green Buildings in Midtown

August 12th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Yesterday was not a good day to be a green building under construction in Midtown. First, Steve Cuozzo reported in the Post that Macklowe Properties’ 510 Madison Avenue, which is currently pursuing a LEED Gold rating from USGBC, has received a partial stop-work order from the Department of Buildings. Later in the morning, a 5 ‘ by 13′ panel of glass fell from the 51st floor of Cook + Fox’s LEED Platinum hopeful Bank of America Tower. The panel landed on sidewalk bridging across 42nd Street (where the former Verizon Building continues to undergo a number of green retrofits), shattering and sending one person to Bellevue. A number of streets around the project were closed while the fire department investigated the incident. Tishman Construction is serving as the construction manager for both of the projects

Meanwhile, at 510 Madison, work is now suspended on four floors and sections of two others. According to Cuozzo, an unidentified object fell off the tower sometime last week, landing one construction worker in the hospital. After an investigation, he reports that a DOB spokesperson found a number of violations on the job, including a pipe scaffold without a permit on the 26th and 27th floors, a general “failure to safeguard all persons and property,” and a lack of adequate protection between the personnel hoist and the building’s curtain wall on its 9th through 12th floors. The 30-story project at 53rd Street was designed by SCLE Architects with collaboration from Moed de Armas & Shannon.

We noted recently that 510 Madison had come close to inking Apple to a deal for one of its full-floor blocks of available office space, but the deal never materialized. Macklowe did sign up luxury watch purveyor Tourneau to a 3300-square-foot lease for retail space at the building’s East 53rd Street corner at the end of July.