Green Office Space

Skanska USA, the U.S. division of Swedish construction giant Skanska AB, is retrofitting the 32nd floor of the Empire State Building in pursuit of a LEED for Commercial Interiors Platinum rating from USGBC. Ranked by Engineering News-Record as America’s number 1 green contractor for 2007, Skanska USA’s area general manager Steve Pressler explained the firm’s philosophy behind the move in a press release, noting that Skanska’s “push for Platinum LEED certification not only aligns with our core business philosophies, but demonstrates to our current and existing clients our commitment to the green movement.” The construction giant signed a deal for a 15-year lease on the tower’s 32nd floor and will take 24,400 square feet upon moving from its current headquarters at 136 Madison Avenue.

The intellectual property law firm Darby & Darby moved into the 41st and 42nd floors of LEED Gold-certified 7 World Trade Center last June. Gerner Kronick + Valcarel, Architects designed the firm’s 80,000-square-foot space, which includes a stainless steel, tension rod-suspended glass staircase that connects a two-story conference/multi-purpose room. GKV’s design emphasizes the natural light provided by 7 WTC’s floor to ceiling windows. Stretch fabric ceilings were installed in each of the office’s conference rooms and glass sidelights connect perimeter office doors to maximize light penetration into the interior.

Kimball Office has received New York City’s latest LEED for Commercial Interiors (”LEED-CI”) rating, copping the Certified designation from USGBC. Its 12,000-square-foot showroom at 215 Park Avenue South was designed in cooperation with TVS Interiors. The showroom officially opened back in January and features a number of sustainable design features ranging from 75 percent recycled construction debris to low-VOC, local, and recycled-content materials, low-flow plumbing, and energy-efficient appliances.

Brennan Beer Gorman Architects / Brennan Beer Gorman Monk Interiors, designers of LEED Silver hopeful 330 Hudson Street, announced last week that it will move from 515 Madison Avenue into a new LEED Silver headquarters of its own. The firm will execute a green fit out of 32,000 square feet of space on the entire 25th floor of the Empire State Building under USGBC’s LEED for Commercial Interiors system. Green features will be replete throughout the space; BBG-BBGM has inked a 15-year lease for which terms were undisclosed.

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.

Back in late April, the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Building Owners and Managers Association named the Related Companies’ Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle its 2008 Office Building of the Year (for buildings larger than 1 million square feet). Related is currently seeking a LEED-EB rating for the 80-story, 2.8 million-square foot tower, which was completed back in 2004. In order to confer the award, BOMA ranked buildings on a scale of 1-80 based on categories that included environmental and energy management, emergency preparedness, and tenant relations.

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.

Last month, the Communist Party USA unveiled a $1 million green renovation of its headquarters at 235 West 23rd Street in Chelsea. The AP called the space’s decor “more Macy’s than Marx,” though it does have a decidedly red theme as you can see in a video posted on the party’s website (link below). The renovation included the installation of modern work stations that are finished with non-toxic linseed oil, as well as biodegradeable carpeting. The space accomodates 21 CPUSA staffers and features floor-to-ceiling windows, transparent glass walls, light occupancy sensors, and employed a number of other unspecified non-toxic construction materials.

Last week, Random House announced that its North American headquarters building at 1745 Broadway has earned New York City’s second LEED for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) certification. To date, only the New York Mercantile Exchange in Battery Park City had formally received the award from USGBC. Random House was able to earn its rating in just nine months; the LEED-EB program requires a building to submit three months of performance data in order to participate and seek the designation. The project team at 1745 Broadway included AKF and LiRo, who both assisted Random House in turning their existing corporate building management strategy into a LEED-EB application.

Tishman Speyer’s loss is now the Related Companies’ gain. The MTA announced today that it has selected Related and Goldman Sachs to develop Hudson Yards into a $1 billion mixed-use neighborhood that will revolve around a central nine-acre grand plaza similar in concept to Tishman’s proposed “New York Steps.” Related will seek LEED Gold for the project (pursuant to the MTA’s RFP), though no specific details are available regarding whether that rating will be for individual towers or a broader LEED-ND application for the entire project.