The Daily Dirt: NYC seeking to ramp up mass timber construction

NYC is slowly embracing mass timber. 

Nearly two years ago, the City Council signed off on a series of changes to the building code, including allowing projects made of the material to rise up to 85 feet tall, or six to seven stories. 

That brought the city up to date with the 2014 version of the International Building Code. The council that oversees code has since brought the threshold up to 270 feet, or roughly 18 stories. Prior to the code changes in NYC, some mass timber projects moved forward, but had to go through extra regulatory hoops, given the lack of code to guide its use.  

Mass timber is the generic term for different types of engineered wood, including cross-laminated timber, which is created by gluing together pieces of treated lumber perpendicularly. (It is more sophisticated than that sounds: This Vox article is a really good primer on the material and how it has become one of the hottest sustainable building materials.) 

On Wednesday, the city’s Economic Development Corporation announced the creation of the Mass Timber Studio, described by the agency as a nine-month program to help mass timber projects in their early stages. The program is seeking applications for $25,000 grants for such projects.   

The material isn’t just strong, it can also cut down on construction deadlines because many components are pre-fabricated and it is billed as more sustainable than concrete and steel production, which each contribute upwards of 8 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other states, including California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho and Maine have been quicker to adopt the material. 

In other concrete-is-bad-for-the-environment news, the state on Tuesday adopted new emission limits on concrete used for state-funded building and transportation projects. 

The “Buy Clean Concrete” guidelines apply to state agency contracts worth more than $1 million that involve more than 50 cubic yards of concrete and Department of Transportation contracts that exceed $3 million and include at least 200 cubic yards of concrete, according to a press release issued by the governor’s office. 

What we’re thinking about: How many rent-stabilized property owners are calling it quits to cover their loans? Send a note to kathryn@therealdeal.com. 

A thing we’ve learned: As part of an annual performance started in 2013, a theater company burns a two-faced likeness of Benedict Arnold in the streets of New London, the New York Times reports. The event rekindles a tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries, when residents would burn Arnold in effigy every year on or near Sept. 6, the day he led British troops in raiding the city. 

“The town that Benedict Arnold burned now burns Benedict Arnold,” David Calder, a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, told the newspaper. “But rather than that being a vindictive, vengeful thing, it seems like it’s this very playful, triumphant statement of survival and continuity.” If you say so!

Elsewhere in New York…

— Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday signed legislation that expands early voting, Spectrum News reports. Under the new law, any voter registered in New York can submit an early ballot by mail. 

— The NYPD’s counterterrorism unit is expected to cut its personnel by up to 75 percent, Gothamist reports. “Today, I was informed that our unit will be downsized significantly, by up to 75%,” Scott Shanley, deputy chief of the NYPD Counterterrorism Critical Response Command, wrote in an email shared with the news site. “Though we are still in efforts to reduce this number, whatever the outcome, many home/personal lives will be affected nonetheless.”

— President Joe Biden met with Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday night and discussed other federally-owned sites in the state that could be used for sheltering migrants, Politico New York reports. That meeting further underscored the fraying relationship between Biden and Mayor Eric Adams, who did not meet with the president while he was in town. 

Closing Time

Residential: The priciest residential closing Wednesday was $8.2 million for a condo and parking space at Fortis Property Group’s Olympia Dumbo, 60 Front Street in Dumbo.

Commercial: The most expensive commercial closing of the day was $11.8 million for a one-story building at 11-24 Wyckoff Avenue in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens. 
New to the Market: The priciest residence to hit the market Wednesday was a condo at 37 Warren Street in Tribeca asking $17.5 million. Serhant has the listing.