Lois Weiss

Lois Weiss

Real Estate

NYC office buildings are buzzing with new green spaces

The world of green building is maturing from talk of wonky equipment and energy efficiency into the health of its occupants.

In fact, the environmentally friendly bandwagon has rolled itself into the daily vernacular so much that for office tenants, sustainable features are now an expectation and not simply a question mark.

“Environmental standards are still important to tenants. It is more of a given now than a topic of conversation,” says Bruce Mosler, chairman of global brokerage at Cushman & Wakefield. But these features have to be seamlessly embedded within an otherwise attractive building or it will prove a challenge to lease.

Similarly, the president of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, Jimmy Kuhn, says, “It matters if you ask the right person in the company, but I don’t believe anyone is making decisions here based on green. It’s still about rent and efficiencies and location.”

Melissa Burch.Handout

Building owners and architects are also working on the next frontiers of environmental leadership, which include engaging tenants to make healthy choices in their own spaces.

These include incorporating natural designs through “biophilia” (plants and nature) while general well-being and new LEED certifications are becoming part of the picture, Mosler says.

“It is also about health and wellness along with phenomenal design,” explains Melissa Burch, general manager for New York at the Australia-based Lend Lease. “How do you improve lives? It’s not just by having more efficient fixtures, but by making connections with nature to improve people’s lifestyles. That is the new movement around sustainability.”

Lend Lease has partnered with the Victor Group to develop the 700-foot-tall Rafael Viñoly-designed residential tower at 281 Fifth Ave. on the southeast corner of 30th Street. Still in the design stage, these trends will be included.

Lend Lease, the largest global developer of offices, is “focusing on fresh air, the connection to nature [and] activating the roofs.”

Rick Cook.DBOX

Architect Rick Cook, a partner with COOKFOX, was an early champion of environmentally friendly design; his partner, Bob Fox, worked on 4 Times Square, New York’s first green office tower.

Cook was at One Bryant Park, a k a the Bank of America Tower, with its developer Douglas Durst and asked, “What is your favorite green feature?” Durst’s answer: “The view.”

“It’s about connecting people to daylight, and making [them feel] connected to nature,” says Cook, whose own new offices at 250 W. 57 St. will have a planted setback with waving grasses and busy beehives. (For now, the honey makers live and work at the architects’ current Chelsea digs.) “In every office building now, we are focusing on outdoor places.”

COOKFOX’s design for City Point in Brooklyn has biophilic elements and flora-filled spaces.

A new office building along the High Line, at 512 W. 22nd St., will offer workers plenty of gardens.Handout

About the design for the Albanese Organization and Vornado Realty Trust at 512 W. 22 St., Cook says, “It is all about connecting with the High Line.”

The elevated park, for its part, offers plenty of greenery. And the “healing gardens” movement holds that plants can have a calming effect and improve mental functioning. Hospitals and senior care facilities have long embraced these oases, and now, office buildings are including them.

Pioneered by real estate firm Delos and the International WELL Building Institute, a new WELL standard measures and certifies features that impact human health and well-being. WELL already applies to 30 million feet of projects in 13 countries.

“We are looking at the WELL certification for our new offices,” says Eric Duchon of Cushman & Wakefield. “Most offices these days have a meditation room and somewhere quiet to go during the day.”

Tenants now expect sustainable buildings, but it must also have the right services. “To compete, we are looking at all the aspects holistically and making sure they are healthy as well,” says Maya Camou, director of sustainability at Time Equities.

Time Equities is working on a new LEED Dynamic Plaque, a certification that literally hangs on a wall and displays changing measurements for all to see. “You work towards certification and there is a process to improve,” Camou explains. “It also helps you understand your building’s water, air quality and human experience.”

Office tenants are also getting more sophisticated about what they’re asking for, says Duchon, C&W’s director of sustainability strategies. Tenants now want to know how the electricity is paid for and if its usage is carefully measured.

“They don’t want to pay based on a rent inclusion or a formula — because their employees shut off their lights,” Duchon says. A technology-enabled space also ties in with an energy-efficient, sustainable workplace. “It all goes hand and hand,” adds Duchon.

Stock photo agency Shutterstock has yoga and massage rooms in its Empire State Building offices.Photo courtesy of Empire State Realty Trust, Inc.

Take the Empire State Building. It’s not only a reproducible model of retrofitted energy efficiency, but it has turned into a sustainable vertical campus for tenants like Skanska and Shutterstock.

The latter, a stock photo agency, has both yoga and massage rooms in its offices.

“We see our sustainability measure as a combination of energy, reducing waste and being more comfortable for tenants,” said Anthony Malkin, CEO of Empire State Realty Trust, the Empire’s owners.

Cornell Tech’s campus will include a “Passive House” dorm designed by Handel Architects.Handel Architects

Over on Roosevelt Island, the Hudson Companies, Related Companies and ABS Partners are building a 272,000-square-foot dorm with 370 rooms for Cornell Tech’s new campus. “It’s the first ‘Passive House’ building here” in New York City, says Steven Hornstock, co-managing partner of ABS Partners.

The so-called Passive House standards will keep the building comfortable, with consistent indoor temperatures. “The operating costs are reduced, and it will consume 60 to 70 percent less energy,” Hornstock says. Among its features are an airtight facade, walls with more insulation and a heat pump system.

As Burch of Lend Lease explains, “The early focus was on efficiency. And now, people are able to marry design with efficiency and a sense of responsibility — responsibility to community, to company, to self.”

While improvements used to get paid for by energy savings, Cook says, its harder to make the financial argument about quality and comfort.

To get the capital for standalone projects like solar farms and energy-efficient tenant improvements, Richard Podos, CEO of Lance Capital, has devised a strategy that gets funding from pension and insurance companies based on the final user’s credit.

“The energy people don’t understand capital markets and finance,” Podos says. “It takes a New York commercial real estate finance team to figure this out.”