Empire State Building goes green

To make the Empire State Building more attractive to potential tenants, the building’s owners decided to go green, spending $120 million on environmental improvements. The renovation of the building is expected to take 18 months, and includes retrofitting all 6,500 windows, adding insulation to radiators and upgrading the building’s lighting, cold water and ventilation systems. The owners expect an annual energy savings of $4.4 million, which would pay off the new technologies in three years. The building’s renovations have already attracted construction firm Skanska as a tenant. The building’s management helped the firm install bike racks and other energy saving details at its offices.