Hearst Tower

• Hearst Tower wins 2008 International Highrise Award ; Norman Foster accepts 50,000 Euro prize in Frankfurt
• In addition to LEED Gold ratings, LMDC continues to explore ways to green World Trade Center redevelopment
• Energy savings at green but non-LEED-certified New York Times Tower are "stunning"
• Upper West Side Streets Renaissance campaign unveils "Blueprint for the Upper West Side: A Roadmap for Truly Livable Streets ” plan
• Recession or not, green building to keep growing
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• CNN list of ten great buildings to see in NYC includes 4 Times Square and Hearst Tower
• NYC broker's clients "impressed" with quality of workmanship at Visionaire in Battery Park City
• PLI's Green Real Estate Summit held in Midtown; Arnold & Porter partner observes that alternative energy is "now presenting real estate developers with many choices that require weighing complex technological, legal and risk factors."
• Tri-State Transportation Campaign: New York and Connecticut should follow New Jersey's example and encourage transit-oriented development, pointing to successes in Jersey City, Hoboken, and Cranford.
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It might be a bit early to start looking back on what has been a truly watershed year for the green movement at large, and green building in particular, but here's our stab at the top five green buildings in New York City that either received a LEED rating or were completed during the course of 2007. Note that not all of the buildings on our list actually sought certification, and some have yet to receive the designation from USGBC. There's nothing scientific to our methodology here, but we've selected projects that we think were important for a unique reason. Still, the real winner this year was the Big Apple itself, which saw an increasing number of green buildings break ground across a wide variety of sectors. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts- or if you think we missed a particularly deserving project- in the comments below.

#1: Queens Botanical Garden Visitor's & Administration Center

The Visitor's Center at the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing tops our list as the first LEED Platinum building in New York City (once USGBC officially confers the designation). Designed by BKSK Architects to reflect the surrounding natural landscape of the Botanical Garden, the Center is an excellent demonstration of design excellence intersecting with sustainability. The project officially opened to the public at the end of September.

#2: New York Times Tower

The Hearst Tower, which sits just under a mile north of the New York Times' new headquarters, grabbed most of the green headlines along Eighth Avenue this year, certainly in part because it earned LEED Gold and the Times Tower chose not to seek a LEED rating. Still, Renzo Piano's new headquarters for the Times is a sustainable building under any standard, and is symbolic of the wave of green construction that's gripped Eighth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen, from the Times Tower and neighboring 11 Times Square, which will seek LEED Silver on the other side of 41st Street, all the way up to the Hearst Tower on 57th Street, as well as recent news regarding LEED Gold 20 Times Square which will soon take shape across the street at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The New York Times moved into its new home over the summer; its public lobby is definitely worth checking out.

#3: Morrisania Homes

The Morrisania Homes, an affordable housing development in the Bronx, achieved a notable first in October when it earned New York State's first LEED for Homes ("LEED-H") certification from USGBC.

Last week, the Building Owners and Managers Association (“BOMA”) International celebrated its 100th anniversary by holding its annual convention here in New York City. The Citicorp Building, Time Warner Center, and 1 Madison Avenue were all lit up green during the four day event- attended by over 2,300 real estate professionals from all over the world - as BOMA recognized some important Gotham green achievements, including the thirty million square feet of Big Apple office space either completed, under construction, or registered with USGBC under LEED. Anthony S. Lifrieri, President of BOMA-NY (which marks its fortieth anniversary this year), also noted that New York’s 7.1 metric tons per capita of carbon emissions are second only to London among global cities (and are less than one third of the U.S.