A ‘green skyscraper movement’ forges ahead, despite the economy’s sagging
Posted on December 3rd, 2008By Nathanial Gronewold
Climatewire: NEW YORK — The national recession is forcing businesses of all sorts to cut back on a variety of planned investments. But Manhattan property owners are for the most part are moving full speed ahead with energy-efficient upgrades, looking to minimize rising energy costs they expect in the future.
Developers’ commitment to improving the energy efficiency of New York’s skyscrapers was seen in full swing yesterday as Dan Venet, executive vice president of CHB Industries, oversaw the beginning of a two-month project to completely replace the old window tinting on a 42-story tower at 600 3rd Avenue, on the corner of 39th Street, with a better material.
The new material — a polyester-based clear film manufactured in Palo Alto, Calif. — will block 55 percent of the sun’s heat radiation. The window coating is especially needed on the building’s south face, where no neighboring structures are present to shade the tower from daylong sunlight.
“It achieves all of the energy conservation that a traditional reflective tinted film does, but it does so without reducing the visible light or altering the appearance of the building,” explained Venet. The better material keeps out not only ultraviolet rays but also the heat-inducing infrared radiation without reducing any of the visible light, netting further energy efficiencies through natural room lighting.
CHB Industries has already replaced the glass tinting at several buildings in Manhattan with this newer high-tech clear film, including at the landmark Black Rock tower, home to the headquarters of CBS television. The Smithsonian Institution recently installed the same material in Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, just east of Central Park. And Venet said his firm has been hired for additional projects in New York, ensuring that the firm should manage to weather the economic storm better than most.
“It’s a winning solution for people who want to take an old building, or even a building that’s not so old, and turn their normal windows into smart windows,” Venet said.
CHB and other companies specializing in energy efficiency upgrades manage to stay busy in New York because building managers here already pay some of the nation’s highest energy costs, and they know costs are set to increase over the next couple of years no matter which way the nation’s economy turns. The city’s utility giant Consolidated Edison has been warning them for years that costs will rise as more and more people and businesses move to the city.
They are also spurred by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to reduce New York’s emissions of greenhouse gases, an attempt to make the city a more welcoming place for its expected influx of 1 million more residents.
Slowly but surely, this city’s skyscrapers are becoming more energy efficient even as energy prices are falling. Indeed, while they may have to curb expenses elsewhere as rents fall as a consequence of a deepening recession, building managers here say they are still putting a high priority on energy-efficiency enhancements, which eventually pay for themselves.
To start: Make liberal use of what’s free
While still mostly occurring under the radar, New York’s burgeoning green skyscraper movement is set to experience a very visible shot in the arm when the new Bank of America Tower opens its doors for business in mid-2009.
The 2.1-million-square-foot high-rise that will house all of Bank of America’s New York activities, aside from its recently acquired Merrill Lynch operations, will cost more than $1 billion to complete, but is on target to become the nation’s first LEED Platinum skyscraper, certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. It will also be the city’s second-tallest tower, after the Empire State Building.
For $40 million more than the cost of building a conventional building, the architects who designed the Bank of America Tower say their building will net its owners huge savings in energy costs and 60 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, without employing any solar panels or wind turbines. The secret is in capitalizing on what the surrounding environment can provide and in enhancements to the heat transfer system.
“On all green projects, you have to really start out with what’s free,” said Robert Fox with the architectural firm Cook + Fox at a briefing to reporters earlier this year. “Sunlight is free, rain is free … if you can think of ways to use it, that’s really important.”
Among other innovations, the LEED Platinum tower will capture rainwater, along with other “brown water” from sinks and air conditioning systems, and use it to flush toilets. Systems installed to capture waste heat will generate two-thirds of the electricity the building uses annually. And the triangular shape of the glass tower is designed to maximize the building’s sunlight intake. Indoor partitions will be made mostly of glass, ensuring that virtually all occupants will have some view of the outdoors and access to abundant natural light.
Bank of America should save at least $3 million on energy costs each year, Fox predicted. But millions more in savings should be gained through productivity enhancements, as employees find they can accomplish more when working in a brightly lit open environment.
With captured waste heat and reuse of ‘brown’ water, you also get Al Gore
While all the “green” enhancements have come at a premium, the owners of the property should expect the new systems and technologies to pay for themselves in 10 years or less.
And the building’s energy-efficient and low-carbon status should make it more competitive than similar real estate in the race to attract new tenants in a tight economic environment. The new building will be so green, in fact, that climate change activist and former Vice President Al Gore plans to house his company there.
“All the things that went into this building have a payback,” said Fox. “We’re working for bankers, after all.”
Other iconic examples abound, including the recently completely New York Times Building in Times Square, just a few blocks from the Bank of America Tower site.
The new headquarters for one of the nation’s largest daily newspapers boasts several green characteristics. An ultra-efficient lighting system installed in the 52-story tower by Lutron Electronics Co., for instance, promises to cut energy costs there by 70 percent, preventing about 1,250 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year.
The U.N. headquarters on the East River is also currently undergoing a billion-dollar renovation, with almost $30 million earmarked toward for building options. The notoriously inefficient structures will undergo a refurbishment that should lead to a 40 percent improvement in energy usage and would earn the complex the equivalent of LEED Silver certification.
Greening New York’s permitting system
These and other high visibility efforts are encouraging more developers and building owners to follow suit. It’s still easier to start from scratch and enhance the energy efficiency of new buildings than to retrofit existing structures, and the depressed real estate market is already causing the pace of new construction in Manhattan to slow down. But owners of even some of the city’s oldest properties are finding ways to cut energy costs — for example, by using materials like the polyester-based clear window film.
Rising energy costs are “going to be an extreme burden on us,” explained Herb Gonzalez, the property manager with L&L Holding Co., which manages 600 Third Ave. “There’s a heat load in this building that is phenomenal without this film,” said Gonzalez. “In the floors that it’s been done already, you can sense it. You can definitely tell the difference between the two.”
L&L estimates that it will save some $50,000 a year in heating costs at current market rates, and with rising utility costs, the window coating should pay for itself in less than five years.
Developers of the forthcoming Bank of America Tower said they worked closely with New York’s Department of Buildings throughout the process, helping to educate government regulators on what goes into green buildings. The department, in turn, has established an efficient permitting system that others can use, taking into account some of the lessons learned from the Bank of America project.
“The city was very accommodating for many of the ideas and the concepts as we were going through the initial design,” said Lynne Rieger, senior vice president for workplace innovations at Bank of America and one of the principals on the green skyscraper project.
The city’s provider of heat and power is also eager to see New York’s burgeoning green skyscraper movement take off. Con Ed is working with developers in Lower Manhattan to ensure that they install the most energy-efficient equipment in the new office towers and condominiums now going up there.
In an effort to further cut demand, the utility company also offers rebates to existing customers to help them pay for replacing aging heating and cooling systems with newer machinery.