GreenDepot

It’s always great to see sustainable design intersect with projects that improve the fabric of our communities. Accordingly, we were happy to see that, in cooperation with its development partner the Dermot Company , the Lower Eastside Girls Club filed plans with the Department of Buildings back in mid-December for a 12-story, 90,000-square-foot mixed-use building that will rise at the corner of Avenue D and East Seventh and Eighth Streets. Designed by Cutsogeorge Tooman & Allen Architects , the project will seek a LEED Gold rating from USGBC and include a number of green design features ranging from building-integrated photovoltaics to both extensive and intensive green roofs and terraces. 72 residential units will top out the remaining 8 stories, while the development will also include 2 commercial units.

The first 4 floors of the building will house space for the Girls Club, which offers a variety of free educational opportunities and career training to New York City girls and their families. The building will also house the Girls Club’s Sweet Things Baking Company and Community Cafe (a social entrepreneurial venture), and girls will grow and cultivate herbs and other spices for the cafe using the green roofs and an accompanying science and environmental education center. Other spaces within the Center will include a technology center, planetarium, fair trade gift shop and book store, a farmers’ market, and health and wellness center. No further details on the project seem readily available but, as always, we’ll follow up on this important Lower East Side construction effort.

• ‘09 to Bring Green Apartments to Avenue D (NYO)
• Lower Eastside Girls Club (CT&A)
• Capital Campaign (LEGC)

Before we get the ball rolling here at gbNYC in 2009, I’d like to wish all of our readers a very Happy New Year and thank you for continuing to make this site such a success during 2008.

A year ago, as 2007 drew to a close, we wrote that the New Year promised to be “fascinating” for green building, both locally and across the rest of the country. I think our prediction turned out to be an understatement for a variety of reasons, including the reaction to our analysis of the Shaw Development case and the ongoing credit crisis; 2009 promises to be no less of a wild ride.

We’re looking forward to sharpening our focus here at gbNYC over the course of 2009 on the design and performance of green buildings while presenting the legal and regulatory aspects of sustainable design in much greater detail over at the Green Real Estate Law Journal .

That being said, I’d like to review what I think were the five most important green building stories that we presented in one manner or another here at gbNYC during the course of 2008. I chose both general and local green building issues that we reported on an ongoing basis which I believe will continue to be significant moving forward through 2009.

#1: Shaw Development v. Southern Builders : Green Building Law Practice Area Begins to Crystallize in Aftermath of America’s First Green Building Litigation

Although the litigation itself did not commence in 2008, gbNYC did report the lawsuit for the first time back in August. Since then, much has been written across the legal community analyzing the dispute in more detail, and I think it’s fair to say that 2008 will ultimately be considered a turning point for green building law as a practice area. Stakeholders are beginning to recognize the risks inherent with green construction, particularly where, as in Shaw Development, a project seeks to take advantage of (or is required to comply with) a particular green building regulation. Regulatory activity will only increase in 2009 and I suspect that Shaw Development is just the first of many litigations that will we see growing out of green construction projects.

#2: AHRI et al. v. City of Albuquerque : The First Shot Across the Bow of Green Building Legislation?

Back in the fall, the federal district court for the District of New Mexico granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs in AHRI et al. v. City of Albuquerque , a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that sought to bar the enforcement of local-level energy efficiency codes on the basis that federal standards preempted the application of the proposed local-level codes. In her decision, Judge Martha Vazquez noted that legislators were “unaware” of federal preemption doctrine when they crafted their proposed legislation. It is possible that other state- and local-level regulatory schemes that were similarly drafted without broader consideration of legal implications might be challenged in 2009, particularly if AHRI ends up standing for the proposition that stakeholders no longer fear backlash for attracting negative attention to green building by filing lawsuits.

#3: 11 Times Square Continues to Look for Tenants While Other Local Green Projects Stall During Fourth Quarter

While green building enjoyed a record year by the numbers (in terms of LEED and Energy Star applications, as well as the McGraw-Hill prediction that green construction will triple by 2013 to a $150 billion per year industry), a number of local projects either struggled or were canceled outright in the aftermath of the meltdown on Wall Street. Despite assurances that it would be well on its way towards filling 11 Times Square by the summer, SJP Properties ended 2008 without inking a single tenant for space in its LEED Gold hopeful tower on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. Meanwhile, notwithstanding its striking green design, Vornado’s planned Harlem Tower at the corner of 125th Street and Park Avenue fell through , and a number of green building projects across Brooklyn, include the Steelworks Lofts in Williamsburg, saw work halt because of the prevailing market conditions.

#4: LEED for Commercial Interiors Office Space Proliferates Across Manhattan

We wrote quite a bit here at gbNYC about LEED-CI projects in Manhattan, a number of which earned formal certification from USGBC during the course of 2008. Anecdotally, at least, we saw a significant uptick in the number of these types of projects that were reported over the last year, suggesting that tenants are not only seeing the financial advantages of greening their office space, but are serious about taking a leadership position in terms of demonstrating their commitment to environmental issues and green design to their clientele.

#5: Green Building Performance Is Still a Question Mark and Industry Experts Are Taking Note

In our article wrapping up last November’s Greenbuild in Boston, we noted that the conference contained relatively little discussion of the performance failures of LEED and other green buildings that have been documented to date. A number of engineers- including New York City’s Henry Gifford- have written extensively about the problems associated with basing a third-party certification, in part, on a building’s projected (rather than actual) energy consumption. Gifford’s critique was analyzed extensively by building science expert Joseph Lstiburek in an ASHRAE journal piece that was published earlier this fall. As USGBC prepares to roll out LEED 2009 and other organizations such as NAHB, and the Green Building Initiative continue to refine exactly how these ratings are conferred, it will be instructive to observe whether other building science experts join the discussion and help frame how next-generation green building guidelines are established, particularly as more governments incorporate such systems into legislation.

Finally, I’d also like to link you back to some of my favorite posts from 2008. Again, all of our best to everyone for a happy, healthy, and green 2009!

• Carbon Neutral Nets Can’t Offset Fan Skepticism
• Modern Green Controversy in East Hampton
• Nzinga Townhomes to Bring Green, Modular Construction to Bed-Stuy
• Bachman-Wilson House: Green, Usonian Architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright
• Credit Crunch Taking Bite Out of Manhattan LEED Buildings
• 2008 Idea House: Green Antiquing in Sagaponack
• 14 Wall Street Earns Energy Star Designation From EPA
• Mitchell Joachim’s River Gym: Do the Loco-Motion
• Law Firm Purchases Manhattan’s “Original” Green Building for $70M
• New York City’s First Green Billboard Set for Times Square
• Green Construction Booming in Manhattan (Photos)
• 235 West 23rd Street: Communist Party USA HQ
• Students Protest Lack of LEED in Design for CT Campus Building
• Lever House Redux: Boston Properties’ 250 West 55th Street
• Thoughts on the Lucida & Cook + Fox’ Platinum Offices: gbNYC Interviews Rick Cook
• Green Design Features Announced for Mets’ Citi Field
• Historic Argonaut Building at 57th and Broadway to Undergo Green Renovation
• The State of Sustainable Building: Ten Notable Green Quotables

Bates Masi Architects received an early holiday present a couple of weeks ago when the East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board approved the firm’s controversial design for a two-story office building at 132 North Main Street in East Hampton. We wrote about the project last month and expressed our optimism that it would proceed as planned, given its anticipated LEED certification and distinctive modern design. The Board was particularly moved by Bates Masi’s choice of materials, noting that the building’s weathered cedar shingles and textured wood surfaces will allow it to visually blend in with the stucco facades of other adjacent buildings, including the historic Lester House across the street. After we initially wrote about 132 North Main Street, Paul Masi was kind enough to forward us two letters that were written in support of the project and sent to local press and the Board in support of the project, one of which was written by New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger. These letters are available for you to download and review below and contain additional details about the project, as well as some insightful commentary on the place of modern green design on Main Street.

• Bates Masi Letter to Press
• Goldberger Letter to East Hampton Architectural Review Board
• 132 North Main Street (gbNYC)

It’s not the type of green building legal news we’ve been reporting over at GRELJ recently, but New York City, DASNY, and the borough of Staten Island broke ground last week on a new five-story state Supreme Court building for Richmond County. The $220 million project will rise in the St. George section on the site of a former municipal parking lot and should be completed sometime in 2012. As an attorney who has appeared out on Staten Island, I can attest that the project is sorely needed to consolidate the borough’s outdated court facilities that are currently spread out across separate buildings; the new courthouse will include Supreme Court, criminal court, and jury assembly space.

Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the 180,000-square-foot project will be Staten Island’s first new courthouse in 75 years and will include a number of sustainable design features (notwithstanding its planned 660-space parking garage). The courthouse will be powered in part by building-integrated photovoltaic panels and also offer three different green roofs. It will also include a graywater system, public recreation space, and space for Staten Island’s green market.

In addition, a memorial green will commemorate the New York Marine Hospital, which occupied the project site during the 18th century. In 2006, human remains were discovered of what was a burial ground for Irish and German immigrants that had been hospitalized. An ad hoc committee determined that the remains should be interred on the site, and this same committee will participate in the design process for the memorial green.

As you’ll recall, DASNY, the New York State agency that oversees most public construction - including courthouses - across the Empire State, has required a LEED Silver rating for its projects since the beginning of 2008. The agency is also targeting a 32 percent reduction in energy consumption for those projects, though we’ve yet to see any actual performance data as reported by DASNY.

• Dirt Moves on SI Courthouse Project (GlobeSt.com)
• DASNY to Require LEED Silver Beginning in 2008 (gbNYC)

ML is short for our weekly Monday LEEDoff™ column, which typically profiles a different LEED project generally in (but not limited to) the New York City area. You can access an archive of profiled projects via this link.

New York City-based architecture and interior design firm Montroy Andersen DeMarco has designed a 150,000-square-foot corporate campus for Switzerland-based Givaudan Fragrance and Flavors in East Hanover, New Jersey (about 25 miles west of Midtown). The $28 million project, which is currently wrapping up now that Givaudan has moved into the space, includes a number of green design features as well as an innovative series of "odor booths," designed to be completely impenetrable to external smells and odors- obviously a critical component of a fragrance company’s design program. Montroy converted two existing office buildings- one for corporate space, the other for fragrance development (including the odor booths)- and connected them with a central lobby atrium; initially, Givaudan had considered constructing an entirely new complex. In addition to reusing the two existing buildings, green features include bamboo flooring, natural daylighting, low-e windows, and fiberoptic lighting, and an automatic indoor air quality and climate monitoring and control system. It’s unclear whether Givaudan and Montroy intend to seek any third-party certification for their efforts.

• People and Places (AW)
• Montroy Andersen

• City’s first green courthouse breaks ground in St. George section of Staten Island
• Solar panels powering Steinway & Sons factory in Long Island City funded by NYSERDA and federal tax credits
• Construction incident takes place at LEED Gold hopeful Laurel condos on East Side
• Plans for what was to be LEED Silver Harlem Park office tower by Vornado fall through
• Green condos from Coggan + Crawford taking shape on 21st Street in Brooklyn
• Only one unit remains at LEED-hopeful Greenbelt condos in East Williamsburg
• Spector Group designs green commercial fit out for ING Real Estate Finance at 230 Park Avenue
• 11 Times Square is increasing commercial office availability in Manhattan
• Facade is complete at green Sterling Green condos in Prospect Heights
• Sales suspended at green Steelworks Lofts conversion project in Williamsburg
• Profile of affordable, LEED Silver-hopeful Tapestry development in East Harlem

Some technical problems that, finally, appear to be resolved have made it a pretty rough go for us here at gbNYC since Greenbuild, but we’ve had a great time covering the New York City green building scene here in 2008 and connecting with so many of you during the course of the year. We’re looking forward to building a bigger, better, and more comprehensive site in 2009, but we couldn’t do anything without our readers and all of your support. We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and we’ll be back with you full-steam once again next Monday!

It looks like we’re back in business here at gbNYC after a technical battle last week on our back end- thanks to all of your for your patience. Boston-based Ann Beha Architects (Princeton’s Carl A. Fields Center) designed an $18 million renovation and expansion to the Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, New York that recently opened to the public and is in pursuit of an unspecified level of LEED certification. The scope of the project included a renovation of the library’s three-story main building, which dates from 1931 and was designed by Charles Platt , as well as a 39,400-square-foot, canopied glass addition. Green design features emphasize building system performance and natural daylighting in addition to incorporating recycled-content and locally-sourced construction materials. The project team also featured Glens Falls-based JMZ Architects and Planners as associate architects. The Crandall Public Library is located at 251 Glen Street in Glen Falls’ Three Squares Historic District.

• People & Places (Architecture Week)
• Carl A. Fields Center (gbNYC)
• Ann Beha Architects
• Crandall Public Library

ML is short for our weekly Monday LEEDoff™ column, which typically profiles a different LEED project generally in (but not limited to) the New York City area. You can access an archive of profiled projects via this link .

We haven’t been keeping to our regular posting schedule here at gbNYC for a few reasons, the most significant of which is a major technical glitch on our back end that we’re furiously trying to iron out. Accordingly, we’ve decided to take a break for no longer than the rest of the year to get our house in order. In the interim, you can find us over at the newly launched Green Real Estate Law Journal , where we’ll be exploring many of the green building legal issues that we’ve presented to you here at gbNYC over the course of the past two years. Our first post includes a link to the most recent issue of the Counselors of Real Estates’ Real Estate Issues , which is devoted exclusively to articles discussing the risk management side of building green. If you print it off, it will likely keep you occupied until we’re back in business here at gbNYC. In any event, I apologize profusely for our technical problems but will let you know once we’re back up and running- please forgive us for the inconvenience.

• Understanding the Business of Green (GRELJ)

600 Third Avenue - between East 39th and 40th Streets- is currently undergoing a green capital improvement program that includes the installation of solar film across the 42-story tower’s 1800 windows (which total 43,000 square feet). The retrofit should be completed sometime during the first quarter of 2009 and could save owner L&L Holding Company up to $30,000.00 each year (thought it’s unclear how those savings would be allocated amongst tenants, if at all).

Solar films are manufactured by applying a metal alloy to a base film, which results in a polyester laminate with metallized coatings bound by adhesive that is applied to the interior of window glazing. Solar film can reduce UV penetration by 99 percent and solar heat gain by 75 percent. For L&L, the installation will also boost the consistency of the 500,000-square-foot building’s exterior appearance, as well as improve daylighting across interior tenant spaces.

The installation is part of a $3.5 million capital improvement program that L&L initiated upon purchasing the property from Sumitomo Corporation back in 2005. 600 Third Avenue was built back in 1972 and was designed by Emery Roth & Sons. Current tenants include the Austrian Mission to the United Nations, Arab Banking Corp., Design Strategy, and Rappaport Steele & Co.

• L&L Holding Co. to Install Solar Window Films at 600 Third Avenue (NYREJ)

Steve Cuozzo reported earlier this week that although asking rents are holding (for the time being) at $100 per square foot, tenants continue to tour SJP Properties’ LEED Gold hopeful 11 Times Square at the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. According to Cuozzo, German bank WestLB considered space at the tower before deciding on LEED Gold-certified 7 World Trade Center at a decidedly cheaper rent (between $75 and $85 per square foot). Japanese bank Mizuho is currently looking for a block of 250,000 to 300,000 square feet with CB Richard Ellis, and Cuozzo reports that it has visited the building as well. The National Basketball Association and Newmark Knight Frank are also interested and, according to Cuozzo, went so far as to draw up architectural plans for space, where it would relocate from 645 Madison Avenue.

Steve Siegel, the global chairman of CBRE who is heading up the leasing efforts at 11 Times Square, also told Cuozzo that “[a]t this moment in time we are in no rush [to enter into any leases]. We have a year before it’s completed and several years of carry built into the pro forma. While people will pay a premium, whether it’s $20, $30 or $10 a foot we don’t know yet.” 11 Times Square enjoys the luxuy of having had its financing in place prior to the credit crisis, and although SJP was confident it would have tenants in place over the summer, it seems like an anchor tenant could be coming sooner rather than later. SJP topped steel out for the project back in late November and tenant occupancy is slated for sometime in 2010.

• SJP Tops Out Concrete Core of 11 Times Square (gbNYC)
• Now Is Time to Trade Up (NYP)
• SJP Holds Steel Topping Out Ceremony at 11 Times Square (PR)

Architectural and interiors firm MKDA has completed a 17,000-square-foot green office buildout for Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a non-profit group that assists donors in philanthropic efforts across the globe. Rockefeller’s space is spread across the 9th, 10th, and 11th floors of 6 West 48th Street and incorporates a variety of green building products, though it’s unclear whether the project will pursue LEED-CI certification. MKDA is entrenched in the green building field; senior vice president Daniel DeSiena is a founding member of Green October, New York City’s first green interior design exposition and trade show, and, over the summer, the firm completed a 3000-square-foot office fit-out for WhenTech, an option pricing, risk management, and software development company, on the 34th floor of LEED Gold-certified 7 World Trade Center. Studley represented Rockefeller in identifying and leasing the space.

• MKDA Designs Office Space at 6 W. 48th Street (NYREJ)
• MKDA Fits Out Offices at 7 WTC (gbNYC)

Businesses go green for the same reasons people go to the gym, give or take a little “good PR” here and some “unfair media representations of the ideal body” there. Both moves are provoked by some combination – the percentages differ from instance to instance – of guilt, a desire to eliminate a certain amount of flab, and recognition that the latter not only expiates the former, but will make a lot of things better going forward. And so, in a downturn that – in this increasingly tortured metaphor – is the sort of economic equivalent of bathing suit season, sports-centered mega-development Chelsea Piers is slimming down, greening up and embarking on something of an energy diet as part of their Green Initiative.

If a lot of the changes that Chelsea Piers is touting – LEED-certified cleaning products, on-site recycling, local foods featured at the on-site cafeteria and restaurant – seem cosmetic, that’d be because they are. There’s a difference between a gigantic development like Chelsea Piers making its supply chain more sustainable and deploying natural cleaning products and, say, a NBA franchise making a big deal out of doing it. There’s a certain branding benefit to be gained for both, of course. But considering how heavily this complex – which includes film and TV studios, multiple ice rinks, soccer fields and basketball courts, a bowling alley, a huge gym and bunch of other things we’re leaving out because it’s a parenthetical and already really long – taxes that supply chain and how much cleaning needs to be done to keep it from smelling like, you know, a gym…well, then the cosmetic changes start to seem a bit less so. If that were that, though, we’d term this a mild greenwash and move on. After all, energy consumption is where Chelsea Piers could save the most. But on energy consumption, Chelsea Piers seems to be getting it right, too.

They’ll see an obvious benefit from switching to more energy-efficient lighting, of course: entities big and small (and serious and non-serious) will undoubtedly be looking for green props on this particular front in coming years. But the purchase of green energy credits to entirely offset the Piers’ enormous electric bill is money-where-mouth-is stuff, especially when coupled with a real attempt to streamline energy consumption. “We aim to investigate every green option complex-wide,” Chelsea Piers executive vice-president David Tewksbury told Fitnessbusinesspro.com (what, you don’t read it?), “and hopefully serve as an example of the way a large business in New York City can operate in a more eco-friendly manner.”

Chelsea Piers touts its status as the sixth-largest purchaser of green energy by megawatt hour in New York, and while it’s always a good idea to bring some suspicion to these sort of self-high-fives, this looks pretty good to us. And so despite all the easy waste/waist and bottom line/bottom jokes spinning through your author’s mind at present, we’ll just say that we hope it all works out. (Sorry).

The $15 million Media Arts Lab at the Jacob Burns Film Center is on track for one of Westchester County’s first LEED Gold ratings from USGBC. Designed by Mount Kisco-based Kaeyer, Garment & Davidson Architects & Engineers, the 27,000-square-foot Media Arts Lab will provide hands-on education for both the public and fellows, expanding on the numerous classroom offerings at the Film Center.

The project broke ground approximately 18 months ago and includes a number of green design features, including a geothermal heating and cooling system, radiant heating, natural daylighting, a green roof, and recycled-content structural materials. The Jacob Burns Film Center has operated since 2001, screens both independent and international films, and hosts industry guest speakers, including directors, actors, and authors.

The Media Arts Lab is located across the street from Metro North and is just a block down from the Film Center itself.

• JBFC Media Center “Green” (JBFC)
• New Center Bolsters Jacob Burns (NYT)

ML is short for our weekly Monday LEEDoff™ column, which typically profiles a different LEED project generally in (but not limited to) the New York City area. You can access an archive of profiled projects via this link.

• Time Equities announces completion date for Helmut Jahn-designed LEED Gold hopeful 50 West Street delayed due to construction financing issues
• Green foreclosure program BankonGreen introduced by Viridian Asset Management
• German bank WestLB signs its lease at LEED Gold 7 World Trade Center
• Brooklyn home on Windsor Terrace is net zero
• Daniel Libeskind goes green with design for his first building in New York City at One Madison Avenue

Copyright 2008, Stephen Del Percio and greenbuildingsNYC .

Apologies again- just one more quick gbNYC test post here to try and figure out what’s causing some of our tech issues. Again, we’re sorry!

Apologies once again folks for disturbing you if you’re receiving this post via either email or RSS. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been hit with some terrible technical issues over the past few weeks that we’re currently trying to iron out. Please bear with me and we’re hoping to have everything back to normal over the next few days. Thanks for your patience!

Brownstoner has been doing a running series on the green indoor and outdoor spaces featured in the book Brooklyn Modern, an envy-oriented coffee-table book profiling the living spaces of people with much cooler apartments than you or I. People, that is, who actually have really nice coffee tables on which to put fancy books like Brooklyn Modern. Or, in the case of the people in the book, really excellently tasteful reclaimed-wood coffee tables situated in very nicely lit apartments. People, in short, like Susan Boyle and Benton Brown.

Their penthouse, in a Crown Heights loft building they turned into a LEED Silver, green-design showcase, is the subject of Brownstoner’s fourth and final installment. Photos by Yoko Inoue – both in the book and at Brownstoner (image here via the same)– take the viewer on a tour of the couple’s salvage- and vintage-intensive interiors and quasi-lush vegetated roof. So, to paraphrase Owen Wilson’s Dignan in Bottle Rocket, “how did a jerk like (Bob, in the movie) get such a nice kitchen?”

It’s a longish story, but well documented and a testament to the incredible hustle of the couple currently using said nice kitchen. (Also, Boyle and Benton don’t seem like jerks, and in retrospect Bob’s only real fault was being skeptical of Dignan’s stupid bookstore robbery plan) Back in the summer of 2004, when (isolated pockets of) America had John Kerry fever, real estate was invincible and Crown Heights was roughly as desolate and crappy as it is today, Boyle and Benton put the finishing touches on their two and a half-year, ground-up renovation of a 14,000 square-foot derelict brewery. The penthouse in Brooklyn Modern sits atop one of a passel of Crown Heights buildings the couple had bought on the cheap several years earlier. The loft building in which Boyle and Denton live was the crown jewel of those buildings, and the couple took a building that had been inhabited by pigeons for 20 years and installed pretty much every sustainable trick in the book, from radiant heating to a rainwater boiler to solar panels to EnergyStar appliances (which are essentially the only new fixtures in the building’s apartments)

As profiled at Grist by Amanda Griscom back in 2004, Boyle and Benton come across as both very directed developers and (in Boyle’s case) expert navigators of the green building paperwork morass. The latter expertise helped their building earn not only that LEED Silver certification, but also Keyspan’s “Green Cinderella” grant. (A great photo of Boyle, Benton, Marty Markowitz and like six anonymous people in suits is here) “The couple has proven that anyone can be a pioneer in sustainable building,” Griscom wrote. “Anyone, that is, with a basic knowledge of construction, a fearless relationship to blow torches, a penchant for grant writing, super-human patience with Building Department code and green-construction manuals — oh yes, and a network of private investors.”

It seems like it’s been quite a long time since we presented a new green high-rise project in the works here in Manhattan, but Steve Cuozzo reported earlier this week in the Post that Extell is planning on developing a 1000-foot-tall, 80-story hotel and condo tower at 151-161 West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Cuozzo quotes an Extell spokesman as saying that “[n]o details have been finalized or resolved,” but the project is expected seek an unspecified level of LEED certification and include close to 900,000 square feet of space, 370,000 of which would be devoted to the hotel and a parking garage. The tower would rise almost diagonally across the street from Carnegie Hall - the site is currently a hole in the ground - and the hotel would be a Park Hyatt. Cuozzo also reports that Extell is currently working with the city to hammer out zoning ordinances and landmark approvals, as the site sits adjacent to CAMI Hall at 163-165 W. 57th St. and Alwyn Court on West 58th. We’ll obviously be following the project as more news about it - and its green features- emerges.

• Luxury Hotel to Rise on West 57th Street (NYP)

It takes a special type of person to walk past the bright lights of the theater district and think, “man, that’s pretty wasteful.” You may or may not be that type of person, but your author definitely is. I also have never really been able to suspend disbelief on the “singing when you should be talking” thing that kind of defines musicals, so it’s probably not that surprising that I see a big, dumb carbon footprint where I’m supposed to be seeing Broadway’s good-timey glitz. While I may never learn to stop worrying and love Crybaby, The Broadway League – a group representing the theater owners and producers footing the bill for said glitz – are preparing to ensure that the Great White Way is about to get a bit greener. Yes, Broadway, a national institution based on all-singing, all-dancing spectacle, is turning its attention to the notably less glamorous topics of recycling Playbills and lighting marquees with LED bulbs.

As with so many green-oriented improvements in New York, this one was spurred by Mayor Bloomberg’s office, which approached the League about becoming more energy efficient back in March of 2008. In the wake of an economic downturn that has put a serious dent in Broadway’s profits – three hugely successful shows will be closing in January – the prospect of swapping out some bulbs in the interest of shrinking energy bills and getting some good, civic-minded pub looked pretty good.

And that, in short, is how a woman wearing full green makeup and a witch costume – it’s this woman, who’s currently playing Elphaba in the long-running musical Wicked – came to introduce Mayor Bloomberg at a press conference last Tuesday, announcing Broadway Goes Green. The initiative, a partnership between the Broadway League and Bloomberg’s PlanNYC program, aims to cut waste, energy and otherwise, at all of Broadway’s big theaters.

“Ten theaters already have replaced some 10,000 bulbs with more energy-efficient ones,” Crain’s reports. “And within the next 12 months, all of Broadway’s theaters will have made the switch.” Jennifer Hershey, director of operations at Jujamycn Theaters and the head of the Broadway League’s building committee, told the New York Times that the St. James Theater had already swapped out 600 25-watt incandescent bulbs for five-watt compact fluorescent bulbs.

Theater owners should see obvious and fairly rapid returns on those investments, but it’s less clear whether individual producers – who already take on huge risks putting on shows, and might be disinclined to, say, buy idling-tour-bus-offsetting carbon credits as part of the Touring Green program – will be as keen to go green. Still, a little less excess and a crapload of new lightbulbs look like a good start. It’ll still strike your author as weird when people start belting out songs when they should be having serious conversations, but the economics of Broadway Goes Green, at least, seem to make a lot of sense.