Green Construction
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: 48% [?]
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: 26% [?]
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: 20% [?]
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: 24% [?]
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: 15% [?]
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: 12% [?]
10Apr2008 | Alex Padalka | 0 comments | Continued
Rafael Vinoly’s 121st Precinct Stationhouse Lands LEED on Staten Island
It’s not often we hear about Staten Island on the cutting edge of green building. But the oft-forgotten borough is home to at least two bold new LEED projects currently underway: a police station and a mixed-use riverfront. The NYPD’s 121st Precinct Stationhouse has been designed pursuant to Local Law 86, which requires most new city-owned or operated buildings to obtain at least a LEED Silver rating. There is presently scant information available about the 47,000-square-foot, Rafael Vinoly-designed project, which will be the first LEED Silver police precinct in the city. The cantilevered structure extends linearly out from the site’s irregular footprint, connecting the public both to the natural landscape behind the precinct and, symbolically, to the NYPD housed within.
Popularity: 8% [?]
9Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Forum Launches for Preservation Efforts Across New York City
gbNYC is a frequent advocate that the most sustainable of construction practices is to respect existing buildings, particularly in as dense a place as New York City where our stock is diversified across every sector of the real estate market. Now, New Yorkers interested in preservation have a new outlet to help shape the future of the city’s historic treasures over the next 22 years. Preservation Vision: NYC’s 15-minute online survey aims to gather input from the entire preservation community as the first phase of a program designed to analyze successes and form a short-list of ideas, come up with recommendations based on these findings, and issue a report by the end of the year to be circulated among a wider audience.
Popularity: 35% [?]
3Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued
Thoughts on The Lucida & Cook + Fox’ Platinum Offices: gbNYC Interviews Rick Cook
gbNYC was thrilled to have the opportunity to recently chat with Rick Cook of Cook + Fox Architects about one of his firm’s green projects- The Lucida- which is currently seeking LEED certification on the corner of East 85th Street and Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side. The project touts itself as the first residential condominium project in the neighborhood to seek a LEED rating, which is an important first given that The Brompton and The Laurel have since joined the local green chase. Mr. Cook spoke to us about specific green features at The Lucida- from its hybrid wall window system to blast-furnace concrete transfer slab- and also offered thoughts on his firm’s office space and the LEED system generally.
Popularity: 13% [?]
19Mar2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 1 comment | Continued
Green Design Features Announced for Mets’ Citi Field
Newsday and MLB.com reported yesterday that the Mets are planning to incorporate a variety of sustainable features into the new Citi Field, set to open in April 2009. The $800 million stadium is being built using 95 percent recycled steel, and will be lit for night games using energy-efficient field lighting. The bathrooms will feature low-flow plumbing elements like hands-free faucets and waterless urinals that the EPA estimates will save 4 million gallons of water a year. The Mets also plan to install a 15,000 square foot green roof on the administration building in order to cut down on heating and cooling costs and are working with the MTA to continue to encourage people to take public transportation to games. The club has also partnered with EPA’s Energy Star program and will implement a recycling program with its concessions vendor, ARAMARK.
Popularity: 14% [?]
14Mar2008 | Meredith Taylor | 0 comments | Continued
Silverstein, Port Authority Escalating Green Efforts at Ground Zero
Yesterday, the New York Building Congress held a Luncheon Forum at the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park City. Sharing remarks were Larry Silverstein, whose Silverstein Properties continues to move forward with redevelopment efforts at the World Trade Center site, and Anthony Shorris, Executive Director of the Port Authority. Mr. Silverstein first provided an overview of the massive $20 billion project, which is still on track for full occupancy in 2012. He also announced that the World Trade Center Design Studio on the 10th floor of LEED Gold 7 WTC, where 120 design team members have been working for the past 18 months, will now be known as the World Trade Construction Center. “We’ve got $2 billion in construction contracts- for concrete, steel, and elevators- on the street right now,” Mr. Silverstein said. “This project is like a freight train- the only way to stop it will be when all of the buildings are complete.”
Popularity: 16% [?]
13Mar2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued-
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