FSC

The Durst Organization and Bank of America recently announced the completion of Henry Miller's Theatre, which is on track to become the first LEED-certified Broadway theater here in New York City. The effort builds upon the Broadway Goes Green program that we noted last December here at gbNYC, which is a partnership between the Broadway League and Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 initiative. Designed by a project team that included Cook + Fox Architects and Adamson Associates of Toronto, the 1055-seat theater is located in podium space facing West 43rd Street, adjacent to 4 Times Square but within 1 Bryant Park (which, as you'll recall, is seeking the first LEED Platinum rating for a commercial office building here in New York City). The Roundabout Theater Company will provide programming for the theater beginning this September 10 with a production of Bye Bye Birdie.

Now dubbed The High Line Building at 450 West 14th Street in a press release, the Morris Adjmi-designed, 100,000-square-foot, 11-story tower recently topped out. The project, which we profiled previously here at gbNYC, is seeking a LEED for Core and Shell Gold rating from USGBC; developer Charles Blaichman has already inked fashion tenant Helmut Lang to lease for two full floors and showroom space. (It's unclear whether a lease for 20,000 square feet of office space with Japanese fashion company Theory has been finalized). In addition to its LEED-CS application, Blaichman is touting the building's unique office and retail frontage and access to the High Line and is aiming to complete the project this fall. Green features are mostly LEED-standard, including efficient lighting, plumbing, and insulation, and low-VOC and FSC-certified finishes. Certainly the project's most unique design element though is that the High Line park itself will actually run for 103 feet through the lower floors of the building, which are actually a converted former beef processing facility; the upper six floors are new steel construction.

Joel Sanders Architect's Broadway Penthouse project offers a unique interpretation of the modern green design aesthetic. The project was completed last year for developer Matthew Blesso's 3200-square-foot penthouse loft in a 12-story NoHo building. Mr. Sanders' design concept was to, quite literally, "bring the outside in" and rethink the parameters of the urban garden, a notion which the architect explores in a course he teaches at Yale's architecture school about integrating nature into design.

The 3100-square-foot loft features a "planted core;" an interior wood staircase is surrounded by vegetation, which rises up through the interior living space and spills out onto a wood-decked roof terrace landscaped with various sedum and grasses. A living green wall graces the master bathroom, surrounds a wooden sink and mirror, and also extends up onto the roof. Natural daylight penetrates into the lower level of the loft through the core to further blur the distinction between outdoor and indoor spaces. The loft's floors are made from tajibo, a type of South American cork that is FSC-certified.

Don't ring the death knell for green luxury condominiums here in Manhattan quite yet; construction is moving forward at 456 West 19th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues) in West Chelsea. The 12-story project, designed and developed by Cary Tamarkin's New York City-based Tamarkin Company, will offer 22 duplex residential units across 12 floors ranging in size from 1100 to 3000 square feet. Tamarkin is aiming for an unspecified level of LEED certification; green features will include FSC-certified white oak flooring, multi-zoned air conditioning units, low-VOC paints and sealants, bicycle storage space, indoor air filtration, and low-E glass.