Green New York City

The Crosby Street Hotel has been registered with USGBC since early April, but details about the project - which will seek a Gold rating under LEED for New Construction- have been hard to come by. Still, the hotel should open by the close of 2008, and given gbNYC’s recent attention to the hospitality industry, it deserves mention before the close of the year. The hotel is being developed by UK-based Firmdale Hotels, well-known for a portfolio of high end hotel properties in London that includes the five star Haymarket and Charlotte Street Hotels. The eight-story, 75-room property- the company’s first foray into New York - is set to rise on Crosby Street in SoHo in what was a parking lot between Prince and Spring Streets.

Haworth, Inc., which designs and manufactures workspaces and office furniture, recently opened its New York City showroom on the second floor of 125 Park Avenue, adjacent to Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. Since 2004, Haworth has designed its showrooms - in Dallas, Washington, and Santa Monica- pursuant to the LEED for Commercial Interiors (“LEED-CI”) rating system, and its 31,000-square-foot Manhattan space will be no different. (Also check out recent news about its LEED Gold showroom in Calgary). With a project team that includes Perkins +Will | Eva Maddox Branded Environments and Turner Construction, Haworth is seeking a Gold rating for the space under LEED-CI, and would join a number of other spaces in Manhattan that have already earned the designation; see gbNYC’s LEED-CI archive for details on these projects.

Originally designed by York & Sawyer, 125 Park itself dates from 1923, and Haworth occupies a floor that previously belonged to the Manhattan Satellite Airline Terminal. The showroom will cater to Midtown’s predominantly corporate and law firm tenants, but feature the moveable walls, raised access floors, and modular Haworth furniture that is standard in all of its showrooms.

Perhaps we didn't jump the gun here at gbNYC by presenting our top five New York City green buildings to you earlier this week- New York Construction's December feature is the magazine's Best of 2007 list, which offers a selection of top New York City projects across a number of industry sectors A number of important green projects were recognized, but the first that we'll note took top honors in the environmental category. The Bronx Zoo’s $1.6 million, 1,100-square-foot Eco Restroom, which we’ve written about before, earned Environmental Project of the Year accolades for its sustainable design features that include 14 composting toilets, graywater systems, and extensive interior daylighting.

In a major turnaround from its seedy Fun City days, Eighth Avenue has made a major case that it’s Manhattan’s greenest thoroughfare. Though the strip has retained much of the gritty flavor that makes it a favorite among tourists and unwitting theatergoers, new green towers from the New York Times and Hearst, plus the speculative LEED Silver 11 Times Square, are all contributing to change its character between the low 40s and high 50s. On Friday, the strip took another green step forward when Governor Spitzer and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced plans for the long-rumored development of air rights above the Port Authority Bus Terminal at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Vornado Realty Trust and Ruben Cos. will develop a 1.3 million-square-foot green office tower above the north wing of the Bus Terminal (image above). The developers will lease the air rights from the Port Authority, and the agency will use those funds to upgrade the Bus Terminal facility with 60,000 square feet of retail and 18 new bus gates in order to boost passenger capacity by 18 percent during peak rush hours. Once the Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners approves the plan, construction could commence as early as 2009 and wrap up by 2013. The agency expects that the 99-year lease with Vornado and Ruben will fetch it close to $500 million for the planned improvements.

The terms of the agreement also require the developers to earn Gold under USGBC’s LEED for Core and Shell (“LEED-CS”) rating system.