Green Retail
Vivavi Teams With Sheldrake to Open Green Furniture Store at Riverhouse
Josh Dorfman and our friends at Vivavi have teamed with The Sheldrake Organization to open an Eco Pop-Up Store at the developer’s Riverhouse condo in Battery Park City. As you’ll recall, the project is aiming for a LEED Platinum rating and recently earned significant green press after Leonardo Di Caprio purchased an apartment in the 32-story, 264-unit tower. The store, which is a fully-furnished Unit 8D, adjacent to the Riverhouse sales center, is open to the public 7 days a week, and features pieces from 18 different green-minded designers, including Brave Space, Modern Bamboo, and Animavi, as well as a Team 7 dining room and office furnishings from Knu Furniture. Vivavi is calling the Pop-Up Store the first of its kind within a residential building in New York City, and it’s certainly the first to exclusively feature green living products.
Popularity: 5% [?]
23Jul2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Brooklyn’s First Boutique Hotel Goes Green in Boerum Hill
Hersha Hospitality’s Nu Hotel, which opened earlier this month, is Brooklyn’s first boutique hotel. Located at 95 Smith Street, the 93-unit property is Hersha’s third hotel after the Duane Street Hotel in Tribeca and Philly’s Independent. Although it’s unclear whether the hotel will seek any LEED or other third-party green building certification, it does offer various eco-friendly features, ranging from organic bedding to custom furnishings crafted from sustainably harvested and FSC-certified teak wood, as well as cork flooring in each guest room. Hersha is also offering bike rentals and storage for guests that are serious about their carbon footprint.
Popularity: 5% [?]
22Jul2008 | 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
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
Morristown Celebrates Earth Day by Honoring First Green Globes-Rated Building in New Jersey
On Tuesday, the Green Building Initiative honored Earth Day by awarding its first Green Globes rating to a project in the Garden State. The Point at Morristown is a six-story, 24,000-square-foot mixed-use office and retail tower developed by Needle Point Homes, a Central New Jersey-based builder of custom home projects. According to Steve Needle, the firm chose Green Globes “because of its ability to assist us in meeting our goals to reduce our impact on the environment and the surrounding community, while being user-friendly and affordable.”
Popularity: 11% [?]
23Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Monday LEEDoff: AOL Opens New HQ at 770 Broadway
Last week, AOL officially opened its new corporate headquarters at 770 Broadway, relocating from its former base in Dulles, Virginia. The building, which dates from 1903 and was designed by Daniel Burnham (the Flatiron Building), occupies the entire block between East 8th and 9th Streets and is currently pursuing a LEED for Existing Buildings (”LEED-EB”) rating. AOL’s new space was designed by Mancini Duffy, and it too will seek LEED certification, presumably under the Commercial Interiors system, though specific details on those efforts are unavailable. Landmarked and owned by Vornado Realty Trust, 770 Broadway is the former site of the Wanamaker Department Store. The tower currently offers 165,000 square feet of retail space; tenants include Ann Taylor Loft, Kmart, and Bank of America. AOL’s lease is for 152,000 square feet over two floors at the 15-story tower until 2022.
Popularity: 15% [?]
21Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Green Retrofits Pending for Long Island City’s Standard Motors Building
The 300,000-square-foot, six-story Standard Motors Building at 37-18 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City will soon be transformed into a $40.6 million mixed-use, commercial loft development that will also offer ground-floor retail space. Purchased by a JPMorgan Chase-backed pension fund, the project has been in the works for some time. Standard Motors Products, which has outsourced much of its manufacturing operations from the site, wanted to sell the building for the highest possible price, but also lease back 60,000 square feet and retain control over the incoming tenants. The project will also implement a number of green retrofit initiatives.
Popularity: 10% [?]
15Apr2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Big Box Stores Jump on the Green Bandwagon
Home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s have kicked up their marketing push for energy-efficient and eco-friendly products sold in their stores, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York, reported earlier this week. Due to increased awareness of issues like sustainability and climate change, as well as rising fuel costs, customers have been requesting projects like energy-saving light bulbs, efficient insulation, and energy-saving appliances in record numbers. Natedra Banks, the senior manager of environmental innovation for Home Depot, told the paper that “builders, in general, want to know which products would give them more LEED credits, and you also have those people who want to know what they can do it themselves to make an impact on the environment.”
Popularity: 8% [?]
28Mar2008 | Meredith Taylor | 0 comments | Continued
2008 Vintage of Microturbines Now Operating on Lafayette Street
Two years ago, Astor Wines and Spirits relocated to the Theodore De Vinne Press Building at 399 Lafayette Street, on the northeast corner of Fourth Street in the Village. At the time, Andrew Fisher, whose family has owned the building since 1983, installed two microturbines in the basement. Until last December, though, when Mayor Bloomberg signed legislation authorizing the installation and use of microturbines, the Fishers had yet to turn the system on. Mr. Fisher told the New York Times earlier this week that the two microturbines, now operating pursuant to the rule, provide enough energy to heat, cool, and provide electricity for his store and its upstairs cooking school and gallery.
Popularity: 5% [?]
28Mar2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
The Lower East Side: NYC’s Emerging Green Retail District?
A feature last week in the Crain’s Small Business section profiled Manhattan’s burgeoning green retail district which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is located on the Lower East Side, along and east of Orchard Street. The piece profiled four particular green retailers- Ekovaruhuset, MooShoes, Organic Avenue, and Kaight- whose owners make it a point to drive foot traffic between one another given their stores’ close proximity. Ira Davidson, who heads Pace University’s Small Business Development Center, told Crain’s that “[i]t’s a very good idea to be there, next to your competitors. You make shopping easier for people looking for those items.” Davidson also noted that because the district’s green wares are so esoteric and diverse from store to store, eco-shoppers are likely to make it a specific destination and frequent stores that share similar missions.
Popularity: 7% [?]
5Mar2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Historic Argonaut Building at 57th & Broadway to Undergo Green Renovation
On Tuesday, M1 Real Estate, a Monaco-based real estate developer, inked a 99-year leasehold on the 10-story Argonaut Building at West 57th Street and Broadway. The Argonaut is the firm’s first foray into the North American market, and a spokesperson for M1 called the property a “home run acquisition.” M1 is currently evaluating the merits of two other potential deals in New York. The Argonaut is across the street from heralded LEED Gold Hearst Tower, and M1 plans to seek an unspecified LEED rating in connection with its renovation of the property’s entire 175,000 square feet. The project’s most sustainable feature, of course, is the Argonaut’s age; it was initially built in 1909 and served as the headquarters for General Motors prior to Hearst, and the building’s name actually comes from that of GM’s holding real estate holding company.
Popularity: 9% [?]
21Feb2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Restaurant Leases Last Remaining Retail Space at N.Y. Times Tower
The New York Times Tower on 8th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets, which earned a spot at #2 on gbNYC’s list of the top five Gotham green buildings from 2007, has secured a tenant for the fifth and final retail block in the non-LEED-certified green building. The 3,200-square-foot space will house a new restaurant concept from Andrew and Jonathan Schnipper, the brothers whose Hale & Hearty Soup chain is now ubiquitous here in Manhattan. The eatery will offer a casual American menu that will be “an evolution of the roadside stand we all knew growing up,” according to Andrew Schnipper.
Popularity: 10% [?]
30Jan2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued
Monday LEEDoff: Green Retail, Rentals Set for 72nd and Broadway
It appears that the Harsen House won’t be the only LEED-certified project that will rise along West 72nd Street. According to a report that appeared in Friday’s Real Deal, 200 West 72nd Street will seek an unspecified level of LEED certification for 196 luxury rental units and 48,000 square feet of retail space which […]
Popularity: 17% [?]
14Jan2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 0 comments | Continued-
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