Plaza Construction Corporation

Why Build Green?
As the world’s population expands, the demand for natural resources has put an enormous burden on the environment. Increasing the importance of the sustainability, efficiency, and quality of our buildings has become evident. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), buildings in the United States consume more than 30% of our total energy and 60% of our electricity annually. Nationwide, 5 billion gallons of potable water are used every day to flush toilets. Buildings are the primary source of pollution in urban areas. For this reason many organizations, communities, and cities have placed an emphasis on building “green.”

One such community is Battery Park City. The Battery Park City Authority, established in 1968 by the New York State legislature, has become one of the largest and influential promoters of green building in the world. The Battery Park City Authority ensures that new developments will employ the latest high-performance environmental designs and techniques available utilizing adaptable and sustainable high quality design.

Green Building Design & Construction
Green building design and construction includes all professionals in an integrated development process, from the design team (Building Owners, Architects, Engineers and Consultants), construction team (materials manufactures, contractors and waste haulers), maintenance staff and building occupants. Collaborating as a team, all of these entities are designing, constructing and operating green buildings that reduce pollution, lower operating costs, enhance the building marketability, and potentially increases occupant productivity, and creates a more sustainable community.

What Makes a Green Building?
A green building, such as Riverhouse on Rockefeller Park, is constructed and designed to reduce energy and water consumption, enhance indoor air quality, utilize sustainable design and materials in its construction, and recycle construction waste, while monitoring and maintaining the efficiency and energy performance of the building’s systems.

Riverhouse
One River Terrace in Battery Park City, a 31 story, 625,000 SF luxury apartment building, currently being constructed by Plaza Construction Corporation is the 5th green building to be constructed in Battery Park City. The building’s ability to reduce energy and water consumption, enhance indoor air quality, utilize recycled materials in its construction and recycle construction waste gives the building its Gold LEED certification. The many green aspects that make this project so special include:

  Exterior lighting will be installed that minimizes the amount of light pollution
      generated from the building;

MEPS systems in the building will exceed local efficiency standards by over 10%;

Over 75% of the waste generated during construction will be recycled;

Interior finishes will contain no VOC’s;

  75% of all open roof areas will be planted as a “green” roof gardens diminishing
      the ‘heat island’ effect so common in urban areas;

  The black water system will treat as much as 30,000 gallons per day of waste
      water from the building and reuse it for toilet flushing, cooling tower make-up,
      and other non-potable uses reducing the demand on the City’s potable water
      supply;

  Photovoltaic’s (PV’s) located on the roof supply the building with 42kw of
      renewable, “clean” energy;

  The flooring used throughout the residences is made from bamboo, a rapidly
      renewable wood resource;

  In excess of 10% of all the materials in the project will contain recycled content –
       examples include concrete, steel, aluminum, and masonry;

  In excess of 20% of materials will be fabricated within 500 miles of the project
      site reducing the impact of emissions from shipping and trucking materials –
      50% of those regional materials will be extracted from the earth within 500 miles
      further reducing emissions;

Green Building Ratings
Each green building is rated by the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED™) guidelines. The LEED guidelines award four (4) different certification levels based on the total number of credits each building has obtained. The credits cover six (6) categories: Sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design process.
(See LEED Certification Levels)