Green Construction

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Modular Homes, Inc. (“MHI”) is an Edison, New Jersey-based custom modular home builder that will break ground in April on what it hopes will be a LEED-certified model home in Robbinsville, New Jersey. MHI homes are built from wood and individual modules are delivered with maximum dimensions of 16’ wide x 75’ long x 14’ high. Homes arrive on site with all finishes, as well as doors, cabinets, appliances, and lights, installed. Modular construction is obviously much more environment-friendly than traditional construction, as individual components are prefabricated off-site.

Next Monday, March 10, Brooklyn Independent Television will air an episode of Brooklyn Review featuring the Reclaimed Home blog’s interview with architect Mark Helder, whose 439 Metropolitan Avenue project in Williamsburg is aiming for Gotham’s first mixed-use LEED Platinum rating. The segment will be part of the news magazine program’s A Walk Around the Blog series, which profiles different Brooklyn bloggers. We presented Mr. Helder’s project a few weeks ago here at gbNYC in relatively little detail, noting that it will house his architecture studio, two duplex condominium residences, a ground-floor art gallery, and feature passive solar design, radiant flooring, photovoltaics, and indoor air quality reaching HEPA standards.