Fordham Place, a 276,000 s/f, mixed-use retail and office complex at the intersection of East Fordham Rd. and Webster Ave., has achieved LEED Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Core & Shell green building certification program.
Situated along the city's third-largest retail corridor, Fordham Place was developed by Acadia Realty Trust and its partner PA Associates, and is one of the first, new mixed-use developments in the borough in more than 15 years.
The sustainable design and LEED certification efforts for the project were led by Croxton Collaborative Architects, the project's coordinating architects for sustainability, who worked in collaboration with the executive architects, GreenbergFarrow. Fordham Place marks yet another professional first in Croxton Collaborative's list of LEED and sustainable design exemplar projects. The firm also achieved the first LEED Gold Academic Building in NY State with St. Lawrence University's Johnson Hall in 2008.
"The strength of USGBC has always been the collective strength of our leaders in the building industry," said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO & founding chair, U.S. Green Building Council. "Given the extraordinary importance of climate protection and the central role of the building industry in that effort, Croxton Collaborative Architects demonstrates their leadership through their LEED certification of Fordham Place."
Croxton Collaborative incorporated a number of energy efficiency technologies into the design of Fordham Place to optimize the energy performance of the entire building. These measures include a high performance central chiller plant with ice storage which significantly reduces peak electrical demand, a thermally upgraded building envelope (walls, roof, glazing), a high performance boiler plant, and a coordinated BMS (building management system). Collectively these strategies have the effect of significantly reducing energy usage allowing Fordham Place to achieve all 8 LEED points for optimized energy performance.
Fordham Place's other notable environmental achievements include:
* Energy Efficiency: 18% whole building energy cost reduction over code compliant design
* Water Efficiency: 41% potable water use reduction through the use of low flow toilets, urinals, and lavatory faucets
* Building Reuse: 63% of the walls, floor, and roof structure of the existing building has been reused in the new building
* Construction Waste Management: 82% of construction and demolition debris have been recycled and diverted from landfills
* Recycled Content: 23% of building materials, on a cost basis, have been manufactured utilizing recycled materials
* Regional Materials: 23% of building materials, on a cost basis, have been harvested and manufactured within 500 miles of the site
* Heat Island Effect Reduction: 100% of roof material is reflective and Energy Star compliant reducing the urban heat island effect
* Enhanced Commissioning of Energy Systems
A major contributor to the success of the project, and the team's ability to pursue such a high level of sustainable design excellence was the significant amount of funding the project received from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). Altogether, NYSERDA granted the project over $540,000 for building systems upgrades, energy modeling, green building analysis and commissioning.
By incorporating numerous sustainable design and construction strategies, the Fordham Place core and shell offers exceptional energy performance, while minimizing the building's impact on the natural environment. Given the speculative nature of the project, the sustainable features of the building were consistently balanced with budgetary concerns; all implemented strategies were put through a rigorous cost-benefit analysis.
Croxton Collaborative Architects has originated a widely influential practice of environmental/sustainable architecture and design, specifically cited in its 2005 National Leadership Award, the first of two such awards (2008) given to the firm by the U.S. Green Building Council. The firm's Natural Resources Defense Council Headquarters (NRDC), completed in 1988, stands today as the seminal project that "turned the ship" toward Green Architecture in America by addressing the full ecology of the building: light, air, energy and human health and well-being.
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