A Tall Order? Aug 5, 2009
One of the world's most iconic skyscrapers, New York's 102-storey Empire State building is undergoing a $20m green overhaul, as part of a towering $500m refurbishment.
Former President Bill Clinton's Climate Initiative has helped fund the project, which the building's owners hope will attract larger, more prestigious tenants when the refit is complete, scheduled for 2013.
The proposed refit is large-scale, though not exactly radical - it includes replacing 6400 windows with aluminium double-hung, thermo-panes, an energy efficient lighting retrofit of more than 30,000 fixtures, converting chiller plants to dual steam and electricity and exchanging water pumps for efficient electric models. What makes this project significant is its scale, and the building's iconic status.
Industry pundits are speculating as to what implications this growing eco-retrofitting trend will have for the architecture, engineering and project management disciplines. Green investment is most definitely increasing. The US market for green architecture and buildings has been tipped to reach $60 billion in the US by 2010: a $53 billion increase in spending from 2005. This upswing offers a range of new challenges and opportunities: to maintain (or enhance) original design integrity throughout a major refurbishment. The best outcomes thoughtfully balance green objectives with quality - in both design and construction.
The focus on New York's older buildings is vital: their energy costs are around $15 billion a year and represent 80 per cent of the city's CO2 emissions. The Empire State Building will aim to reduce its energy consumption by 38 per cent, saving $4.4m each year. The 'green' part of the refurbishment at least should pay for itself in less than five years. But the costly project's benefits are less about saving money than about timely conservation of heritage, conservation of energy, and increasing income by repositioning midtown Manhattan's shop-worn icon as a high-end Class A building.
In doing so the Empire State Building company, owner of the 102-storey block, will be bucking the economic trend in an approach also being taken by forward-thinking landlords in New Zealand, albeit on a much smaller scale (see lead story).
To quote Bill Clinton: "In this distressed economic climate, there is a tremendous opportunity for cities and building owners to retrofit existing buildings to save money and save energy. It is this kind of innovative collaboration that is crucial to protecting our planet and getting our economy up and running again."