Sherwood’s NY office overlooks Bryant Park, and every day we see the progress of a number of construction sites. There’s The New York Times building, and One Bryant Park, but there was also the building on 6th Avenue that was an existing building, seemingly functioning, but draped in scaffolding. It turns out, the building is the former Verizon building, now 1095 Avenue of the Americas, and what they are doing under the scaffolding is completely renovating 80% of the interior of the building, and replacing all of the building’s exterior.
Energy efficient floor to ceiling glass will replace the old facade, and building systems will be upgraded to a more energy efficient variable air volume HVAC unit. Additionally, energy efficient lighting will be integrated into the building. All told, operating costs for the building are expected to be lowered by $1/sq. ft.
But despite the interesting work being done across the street, it has barely been mentioned. I walk by it every day and had no idea what was going on inside. It seems like this is the type of building Bloomberg should be touting in his PlaNYC 2030 if New York City really wants to address how to make our existing buildings more efficient.
- One Bryant Park Stealing Thunder From Quietly Fascinating Cross-Street Green Reno (greenbuildingsNYC)
- Extreme Makeover (New York Construction)
I agree. As green becomes more mainstream, retrofit of the existing infrastructure will become more critical to the success of the green movement.
Why has infrasrtucture-retrofit not yet been as public? Because its not as sexy and harder to design.
An example of green retrofit that is now the hot thing includes Green Street design. I can’t wait for surbarban retrofit and creation of suburban-to-urban ‘town centers’ to be all the rave. It is allready there in isolated projects yet a real challenge.
Interesting post.