Queens Library must have found money

From The Real Deal:

Sometime in the spring, a glamorous new branch library will open in the unlikeliest of places, at 255-01 Union Turnpike in Glen Oaks, Queens. Designed by Scott Marble and Karen Fairbanks, who founded Marble Fairbanks in 1990, this blast of neo-mod zazz will rise in the midst of what is akin to a strip mall. Replacing an older brick-faced structure on the same site, the new library will be an 18,000-square-foot, LEED certified space on three levels — one of them below grade — that will contain a circulating library, a cyber center and communal meeting spaces.

Weren't we threatening to close Queens Library branches recently due to lack of funding? Why is a glamorous new hoidy-toidy branch being built in Glen Oaks?

New life for Apple building

From the Daily News:

Score one more for Long Island City and its transformation from gritty factory town into a live, work and play neighborhood.

A long vacant building at 30-30 Northern Blvd., now just a concrete shell, will become a seven-story commercial complex by this time next year, according to the project’s developer.

And a university campus could also be there in five years.

Alma Realty has begun gutting the building and plans to add two stories and complete a new 270,000-square-foot structure by early 2013. Plans also call for a rooftop terrace and for the building to be Gold LEED-certified, a coveted badge of eco-friendliness.

Alma will soon be looking for tenants — especially tech firms — to occupy the building, which a decade ago housed a topless dance club.

Rockaway Y about to get green light

From the Daily News:

A LONG-DELAYED YMCA center at the Arverne by the Sea complex in the Rockaways is close to getting a green light from the city to begin construction.

The Mayor's Office is about to approve the project, which had been in limbo because of a local law that required it be LEED certified because it got more than $10million in city funding.

Ryan Whalen, chief of staff for Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, said at the inaugural public gathering of the Rockaway Task Force on Tuesday that the city "expects the construction to begin very shortly."

The announcement was greeted with applause by the 60 or so people in attendance.

The city would waive its requirement for LEED certification - which ensures that a building adheres to strict environmental standards.

To receive this waiver, officials with the developer, Benjamin-Beechwood, have been meeting with officials from the Mayor's Office since July to discuss how they could alter their designs, said Gerry Romski, the Arverne by the Sea project executive and counsel.

The designers have made enough alterations to the YMCA - such as using low-flow toilets and more environmentally friendly paint - to significantly improve its LEED ranking, Romski said.

Local Law 86, which took effect in 2007, requires that construction projects that get $10 million or more in city funding be LEED certified.

If the waiver is granted, construction on the $25 million center can begin "ASAP" and can be completed in 1-1/2 years, said Romski.

The LEED conspiracy

From the NY Post:

The USGBC claims LEED buildings are 25 percent to 30 percent more energy efficient, a figure based on a 2007 study it commissioned from the New Buildings Institute. But Gifford figured out that USGBC fudged the study by comparing the median energy usage of a LEED sample to the mean (or average) usage of non-LEED buildings. By taking the mean value of both distributions, he found the same data indicated that LEED projects use 29 percent more energy than non-LEED buildings.

No one knows for sure why, but clearly, the group's energy-modeling tools and arcane point system fail to predict how real-life mechanical systems function and tenants behave. For example, Gifford's report showed a picture of the Hearst Tower on 57th Street -- billed as New York's first green skyscraper -- with its lights blazing at night.

Follow-up reviews of the study have confirmed the inaccuracy of the USGBC's claims. "There is no justification for USGBC claims that LEED Certified commercial buildings are using significantly less electricity or have significantly lower greenhouse-gas emission associated with their operations than do conventional buildings," wrote Oberlin College researcher John Scofield in a paper last month.

So why is LEED so popular? Well, it lets politicians cloak themselves in the garb of environmental activism without upsetting real-estate interests. Thus, when city and state lawmakers imposed their sweeping regulations here in New York, they never bothered to check LEED's claims.

For developers, LEED is a source of tax credits, a potent marketing tool and protection from environmental criticism. It has given rise to a whole new industry of "accredited" consultants -- a constituency that's grown to over 100,000 who get paid to advise developers on how to get their project certified and to assess buildings.

And the program has been good for the "nonprofit" USGBC, which reported a 300 percent growth in revenue from 2005 to 2007. The group rakes in tens of millions of dollars each year from examination and conference fees, member dues and speaking engagements. Many of the same people who developed the USGBC rules make money as private LEED consultants, members say.

But there's a hefty cost here. While estimates vary, developers and officials say LEED often adds 5 percent or more to project costs -- an expense that's passed on to the tenant or (in the case of public works) to the taxpayer.