Energy Concepts wins another Building Brooklyn Award™ for 2011

From brownstoner.com: “Today the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce announced the 13 winners of this year’s Building Brooklyn Awards, and they include projects like Williamsburg’s 184 Kent Avenue for adaptive reuse and Pratt Institute’s Myrtle Hall for education. As pictured above at top, the Newtown Creek is one of the winners for its Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Chamber describes the project thus: “The buildings are surrounded with green spaces placed to act as buffer zones between the plant and the street. The buildings are clad in colorful ceramic glazed brick, tile and stainless steel to create a dynamic presence on the waterfront and employ a flexible ‘kit of parts’ design to visually organize the plant by function and to ensure design continuity through the life of the project. The entire plant is covered in blue light at night, uniting the disparate elements of the facility and providing a glowing visual element against the skyline.” The awards will be held on Thursday, July 14, 2011, and the Chamber will also honor Jed Walentas of Two Trees Management and Deb Howard, the executive director of the Pratt Area Community Council during the ceremony.”

Brooklyn Building Awards:

-184 Kent Avenue, Adaptive Reuse
-Newton Creek, Civic and Institutional
-Pratt Institute- Myrtle Hall, Education
-Erasmus Hall High School, Historic Preservation
-Brooklyn Brewery, Industrial
-28 Old Fulton Street, Interior Renovation
-Brooklyn Ecopolis, Mixed Use
-Phoenix Beverages, National Grid Award for Energy Efficiency
-Brooklyn Bridge Park, Open Space
-Wyckoff Exchange, Retail
-The Domenech, Residential: Affordable
-Clinton Rising, Residential: Low Rise
-Mason Fisk, Residential: Multi-Family

The Toren Condominium Tower achieves LEED Gold certification

By Liana Grey at Real Estate Weekly:

“…a handful of new developments, particularly condos, are playing up LEED certification as a primary selling point. “The feedback I’ve gotten is that a lot of buyers will only look at green buildings,” said Marco Auteri, director of sales at the Toren, a condo tower in Downtown Brooklyn on track for LEED Gold.

On the building’s website, energy-efficient features like a cogeneration plant are listed under a tab labeled “responsibility.”

But it’s really the health benefits of green living (and the prospect of a healthy long-term investment) that have been a draw.

One buyer, Auteri said, was looking to upgrade from a dusty pre-war apartment, and had narrowed his search to green buildings. “Just from spending 20 minutes here, he noticed a difference in air quality,” Auteri said. “Our apartments are like zip-lock bags, sealed off from one to the other.” Cigarette smoke and other fumes can’t pass between units, and as a bonus, vents above each doorway filter in fresh air.

These and other green features are bound to impact resale value down the road, buyers believe. “The trend is that all buildings are going green,” said Auteri. “You don’t want to be stuck in a building that’s not.”
Buyers at the Toren, which is about 80% sold, are willing to pay a premium for filtered air and energy efficiency, he said. Otherwise, “in ten years, when you sell, you lose a bit of an edge.”

When sales slowed during the recession, details like low-VOC paint fell off the radar. “In 2009, green wasn’t so much a deciding factor as price,” Auteri said.

Now, eco-marketing is making a comeback in Brooklyn, as inventory shrinks and environmentally conscious buyers continue to stream into the borough.

With its major thoroughfares, office towers, and shopping centers, the borough’s commercial center may seem an unlikely hot spot as a green zone.

But down the block from the Toren, which sits on Flatbush Avenue near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, an abandoned lot filled with shipping containers is being transformed into a flea market. Each container will serve as a makeshift stall for food and other products.

Across the street from the market, two dilapidated brick buildings will soon be demolished and replaced with a park, Auteri said. An organic supermarket is leasing a storefront at the Toren’s base, and a handful of LEED-certified rental buildings, including the Brooklyner, have opened in the neighborhood.”

To read more of this article, please visit Real Estate Weekly.

For additional reading, see the Toren Condo official website.