US to See First 'Green' High-Rise
EarthVision Environmental News
06/30/00
NEW YORK, NY, June 30, 2000 - Lower Manhattan will soon be home to the first environmentally advanced "green" high-rise apartment in the US. The 26-story waterfront building will offer views of the Hudson River, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The building got the green light when the Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority announced that it selected the proposal by the Albanese Development Corporation, which is heading the project. The developers are expected to apply for tax credits under New York Governor Pataki's first-in-the-nation "green" building tax credit program.
Some of the building's features include:
On site storage, filtering and recycling of graywater from lavatories, showers and laundry facilities to supply flush water to toilets and other maintenance functions;
Photovoltaic panels for generating electric power to light the hallways and common areas, with space allocated for the future use of fuel cells; geothermal technologies utilizing the river and water tables;
The collection of storm water from the roof in a 15,000 gallon storage tank, and plumbing fixtures that use 10 percent less water than required by the Energy Policy Act of 1992;
Energy strategies that are 30 percent more efficient than current state codes, including dimmable and motion-detector controlled lighting, low-E glazing, high efficiency insulation, 30 percent more natural light, and energy-efficient appliances;
The recycling of a minimum 60 percent of construction waste material;
High use of construction materials with recycled content; and
Efficient HVAC systems with high amounts of filtered outdoor air using electrostatic filter enhancement.
The building will have approximately 250 units, averaging about 1,100 square feet in size. Sixty-five percent of the apartments will be two or three-bedroom units that have their own laundry facilities. When it's all said-and-done, the developer estimates that the cost of the 335,000 sq. ft. building, which will be located on the corner of River Terrace and Murray Street, will come in at $95 million. Construction is expected to begin in early 2001 be completed in late 2002.