Green Leases

600 Third Avenue- between East 39th and 40th Streets- is currently undergoing a green capital improvement program that includes the installation of solar film across the 42-story tower’s 1800 windows (which total 43,000 square feet). The retrofit should be completed sometime during the first quarter of 2009 and could save owner L&L Holding Company up to $30,000.00 each year. Solar films can reduce UV penetration by 99 percent and solar heat gain by 75 percent. For L&L, the installation will also boost the consistency of the 500,000-square-foot building’s exterior appearance, as well as improve daylighting across interior tenant spaces. The installation is part of a $3.5 million capital improvement program that L&L initiated upon purchasing the property from Sumitomo Corporation back in 2005.

We can’t stop writing about 11 Times Square here at gbNYC; the project continues to remain fascinating to us on a number of different levels. Designed by FXFOWLE and aiming for a LEED Gold rating, the 40-story tower has yet to land a single tenant despite assurances from developer SJP Properties that the building would be half-filled by this past summer. That, of course, was before the credit crunch, and the project has, at least in our opinion, become the paradigm for green building projects that continue to move forward through the current market turmoil. Still, yesterday, SJP did announce some good news: the building’s 600 foot high concrete core- the tallest ever in Manhattan office building- has topped out. The core will contain all of the building’s infrastructure- utility risers, elevators, and emergency stairwells- and allowed FXFOWLE to design 11 Times Square with fewer perimeter steel columns- a significant green design feature. SJP expects to top the steel out sometime next month and will be ready for yet-to-be-determined tenants by 2010.

The Principal Financial Group recently earned an unspecified level of LEED for Commercial Interiors (”LEED-CI”) certification for its corporate headquarters space on the 25th floor of 888 Seventh Avenue in Midtown. Designed by M Moser Associates, the 19,800-square-foot office includes extensive natural daylighting, low-flow water fixtures, and other energy-efficient systems. The space was designed to achieve a 15 percent reduction in energy consumption through occupancy sensors and programmable, efficient HVAC units. The project team also included Synergy Construction, Inc. with LEED consultants OMNIBUILD, and only required seven months to complete. 888 Seventh Avenue, located on West 57th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, includes 46 stories of office space, was built in 1969, and is owned by Vornado Realty Trust. Other major tenants include New Line Cinema and The Corcoran Group.

We wrote earlier this summer about Brennan Beer Gorman Architects / Brennan Beer Gorman Monk Interiors’ (”BBG-BBGM”) new headquarters space on the 25th floor of the Empire State Building, which will seek the tower’s first LEED for Commercial Interiors rating. Recently, the 32,000-square-foot project’s general contractor Aragon Construction installed BBG-BBGM’s HVAC system on the building’s first setback on the southwest corner. The two 9500-pound chillers will run independently from the rest of the Empire State Building and were designed to save BBG-BBGM 15 percent on energy consumption over ASHRAE standards. The installation was actually the first in the history of the building and suggests some of the intricacies of both green construction contracts and leasing provisions, including whether the landlord or tenant should be responsible for the installation of such equipment and how any associated savings that are realized might be shared between the two sides.