Green Construction
Upper West Side’s First Green Condo Complete on 72nd Street
We’ve written previously about the Harsen House; the 16-story, 22-unit project at 120 West 72nd Street broke ground in late 2006 and developer Anbau Enterprises sold the project out within a scant seven months. The building was designed by BKSK Architects (designers of the Queens Botanical Garden Visitor’s Center, which recently earned Gotham’s first LEED Platinum rating) with interiors by Andres Escobar. Green design elements include hot water radiant heat, FSC-certified oak floors, ducted kitchen hoods which ventilate air directly outdoors, and energy-efficient, floor to ceiling windows. Anbau recently announced that it has completed the 60,000-square-foot project after inking retail heavyweight Sleepy’s (The Mattress Professionals) to a long-term lease for the Harsen House’s 4000-square-foot ground-floor retail space.
Popularity: 7% [?]
21Jul2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Green Hotel From Peter Moore Associates Set for Bowery
A new 63-room boutique hotel is slated for construction between Houston and Prince Streets across from the New Museum of Contemporary Art at 250 Bowery. The tower is tentatively scheduled to open in early 2009 after renderings were revealed close to three years ago. Designed and developed by Peter Moore Associates, the hotel will feature a number of green design elements ranging from a green roof and geothermal heating and cooling system to efficient plumbing systems and various renewable and recycled construction materials. The project is expected to seek a LEED Platinum rating. The Bowery hotel would join another planned green downtown boutique- the stalled Greenhouse 26, designed by Arpad Baksa.
Popularity: 17% [?]
10Jul2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Intervale Green: Affordable, Sustainable, & Wired in the Bronx
Intervale Green is a $45 million, 127-unit affordable housing development under construction in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. Project sponsor WHEDC teamed with energy consultant Steven Winter Associates to reduce the building’s expected energy costs by 35 percent through numerous sustainable design elements, including the installation of EnergyStar appliances and light fixtures. Other green design features include two different green roofs, low-e windows, and non-toxic paints and sealants- important because the Morrisania neighborhood holds the unfortunate distinction of the highest asthma rate in the Bronx
Popularity: 23% [?]
2Jul2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
LCOR’s 545 Madison Avenue Signs Alfred Dunhill to 10-Year Lease
LCOR’s LEED Gold (for Core and Shell) hopeful 545 Madison Avenue is back in the news after the developer recently inked British retailer Alfred Dunhill to a 10-year, 7000-square-foot lease for two floors of retail space. The upscale men’s clothier is currently located at 711 Fifth Avenue but will receive 175 feet of street window frontage along Madison Avenue and East 55th Street. CB Richard Ellis represented LCOR and Alfred Dunhill in the lease negotiations, which resulted in a deal at $600 per square foot. The store should open up this summer; LCOR is aiming the 17-story project’s 140,000 square feet of office space at seventeen (or fewer) boutique legal or financial services firms.
Popularity: 18% [?]
17Jun2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Z100, Q104.3 Settling Into Green Clear Channel Studios in Tribeca
Back in late 2006, Texas-based Clear Channel Communications, the radio giant that owns five New York City FM stations, including Z100, Q104.3, and 106.7 Lite-FM, signed a 15-year lease at 32 Avenue of the Americas. The company recently completed a fit-out of the 120,000 square feet it now occupies across the second, third, and fourth floors, where it will pay from $35 per square foot up to $43 over the term of its lease to house the five stations. Architects Meridian Design specified a number of green design features for the project.
Popularity: 24% [?]
12Jun2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Sciame Tops Out Mayne’s Green Academic Building at Cooper Union
Frank Sciame Construction Co. recently topped out Cooper Union’s new $150 million academic building at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between East 6th and 7th Streets). The 9-story, 175,000-square-foot tower was designed by 2005 Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne and his Morphosis firm and is seeking at least a LEED Gold rating, with Platinum still a possibility. Cooper Union calls the project New York City’s first green academic building.
Popularity: 47% [?]
11Jun2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Port Authority Close to Freedom Tower’s First Private Lease with Chinese Real Estate Co.
The New York Observer reported yesterday that the Port Authority has reached a tentative agreement with China’s Beijing Vantone Real Estate Company for 190,000 square feet of space in the LEED Gold hopeful Freedom Tower across its 64th and 69 floors. The firm will pay approximately $80 per square foot for a 22-year lease and create a “China Center” designed to be a cultural and educational portal for Chinese firms looking to do business in the U.S. and American firms interested in similar efforts in China. The news is of particular interest from a green leasing perspective given that Vantone came close two years ago to leasing the very top of Larry Silverstein’s LEED Gold 7 World Trade Center.
Popularity: 27% [?]
4Jun2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued
ML: Green Construction Booming in Manhattan (Photos)
Last Thursday, I spent an afternoon out of the office and took some construction progress photos of a number of the LEED projects that we’ve presented here at gbNYC. I started out on 42nd Street at SJP Properties’ LEED Gold hopeful 11 Times Square before heading downtown to Battery Park City’s Riverhouse (seeking LEED Platinum) and Goldman Sachs Tower (Gold). We haven’t written about it yet (we will) but I finished up with some shots of Related’s Robert A.M. Stern-designed Harrison condominium development on 76th and Amsterdam which is aiming for Silver. As you’ll see, steel at 11 Times Square is well out of the ground and lagging just a few floors behind the tower’s concrete core.
Popularity: 28% [?]
2Jun2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Perkins + Will to Design $1B LEED Silver Police Academy in Queens
Earlier this week, the Department of Design and Construction and the New York City Police Department selected Perkins + Will to design the NYPD’s new $1 billion Police Academy, which will be located in College Point, Queens. The project will seek at least a LEED Silver rating from USGBC and will consolidate the NYPD’s existing Academy in Manhattan and other facilities in the Bronx and Brooklyn across a 35-acre site that currently serves as the city’s largest auto impound. The new Academy will feature a firing range, 450,000-square-foot physical training area, 250 classrooms, and a 100,000-square-foot “tactical village” that will include mock street scenes, subway cars, and a bodega.
Popularity: 18% [?]
23May2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
British Airways to Launch LEED at JFK with Terminal 7 Rehab
British Airways announced yesterday that it will spend $30 million over the next 18 months to refurbish its Terminal 7 out at JFK International Airport. The project is slated to break ground in June and BA plans to pursue first LEED rating to date for any facility at JFK. Specific details on green design features aren’t available yet, but the new terminal will maximize natural daylight and presumably incorporate other LEED-standard credits. The New York Observer suggests that “modernist furniture, clean lines and general sleekness seemed to be the prevailing theme” for Terminal 7 at yesterday’s unveiling.
Popularity: 24% [?]
22May2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Brookhaven National Laboratory Awarded Long Island’s First LEED Silver Rating
The Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory has earned Long Island’s first LEED Silver rating. Brookhaven’s $12.6 million Research Support Building, designed by Farmingdale, New York-based Ehasz Giacolone Architects, earned 34 credits from USGBC, including the maximum possible for recycled-content and locally-sourced materials. General contractor E.W. Howell of Woodhaven, New York also diverted between 50 and 75 percent of the project’s construction debris from local landfills.
Popularity: 19% [?]
20May2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued
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. The Queen Anne-style 222 Bowery was landmarked in 1998 and is currently a six-story loft co-op.
Popularity: 11% [?]
24Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Sustainable Home(less) on the Upper West Side
Green materials and energy-efficient appliances are par for the course when the client is paying over $1,000 per square foot. Fortunately, thanks to socially-concerned and eco-conscious designers and suppliers, sustainably-built habitats need not be exclusive. The basement of the Broadway Presbyterian Church in Morningside Heights serves as a homeless outreach hub shared by several organizations. One of them, Care of the Homeless (”CFH”), a non-profit providing free medical services to the homeless, received a small federal grant to renovate its 500-square-foot medical facility in the basement, where “medical staff was performing medical exams in a rather crowded closet.” The New York affiliate of Architecture for Humanities (AFHny), the non-profit network of designers behind dozens of rebuilding efforts from Sri Lanka to New Orleans, came on board, as did several eco-conscious suppliers that chipped in free or discounted materials.
Popularity: 9% [?]
10Apr2008 | Alex Padalka | 0 comments | Continued