While New York City is getting the first office tower in America to compost food waste, compared to other cities, New York lacks green high-rises.
There are only 17 green buildings in Gotham — as
measured by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council — compared to 36 in Chicago and 34 in Portland. Portland, a city about one-sixth the size of New York, has already built about 5.05 million square feet of LEED-certified buildings, with millions more square feet in the pipeline.
In New York City, the most high-profile example of green building is the 2.1 million square feet of commercial space coming online at One Bryant Park, a 54-story tower where food waste will be recycled. It is being built by the Durst Organization and will account for nearly a quarter of the city’s LEED-certified space.
While 311 green buildings are in the pipeline in New York for the next five to seven years, the majority of these are new developments. Most of these are small residential projects, like the Greenbelt, an eight-unit residential project at 361 Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg being developed by Derek Denckla and architect Gregory Merryweather. The project is Brooklyn’s first LEED-certified condo.
With the downturn in the post-credit crunch era, the status of green new development in the city may be unclear. However, retrofitting buildings, a less visible aspect of
green building, is another way of adding to the city’s green housing stock.
Retrofitting existing buildings can be expensive, but building owners can enjoy more than just lower energy bills, which, depending on the extent of the retrofit, can decline by up to 40 percent.
Typical retrofits include more efficient use of water in bathrooms, new windows that require virtually no window-washing with chemicals, individual heating and cooling mechanisms for each office, and green-friendly lighting systems.
Taken together, these changes can add up to massive environmental benefits and steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. While expensive, experts say these types of retrofits are less costly than tearing buildings down and building from scratch.
Retrofitting will be necessary in order to achieve Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC greenhouse gas emission goals of a drop of 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. PlaNYC does not spell out how this reduction will be reached, but the energy produced to operate buildings currently accounts for 79 percent of the city’s carbon emissions.
But retrofitting is not without its drawbacks, including the downside of its popularity.
“Everybody building a new building is looking to make them as green as possible,” said Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. “But there aren’t enough contractors to do what needs to be done in a short time,” including retrofitting existing buildings.
That’s an understatement. According to an estimate by the USGBC’s New York chapter, there are only several hundred contractors throughout the city qualified to design and oversee green retrofits.
“LEED is still quite new, and it takes a while to get tradespeople trained to do something new,” said Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate at New York University. “We’re in the early stages, so there are going to be delays.”
In pursuit of its green goals, the city is trying to nurture a community of professionals who can do green retrofits. In addition, the city government has committed to retrofitting its own sizeable portfolio of buildings in order to comply with PlaNYC by 2017.
To help make existing buildings green, the USGBC is starting a training program for contractors this fall. The course will supplement workshops already available.
“No city has effectively tackled existing buildings,” said Russell Unger, who heads USGBC’s local chapter.
But there appear to be incentives for cities to do so. In addition to benefiting the environment, there’s evidence LEED-certified buildings can command higher rental premiums.
One Bryant Park is an example. Many future tenants
have signed leases for higher than $100 a square foot, well above the average asking rent for Midtown, which was $79.81 last quarter.
While many of the tenants are from the finance industry and are keen to occupy extra-large floor plates, observers say that One Bryant Park’s green features are also an important draw.
“Tenants are saying it [environmental friendliness] is one of the most important things they look for now,” Been said.