Brooklyn Rental Tower to Set New Record in Sustainability Push

(Bloomberg) — A New York developer is unveiling plans for an apartment tower in downtown Brooklyn that will far exceed city and state energy-efficiency standards and be the tallest building of its kind in the world. 

Alloy Development’s 63-story skyscraper is designed to meet “passive house” standards, including use of airtight insulation and heat recovery. Construction is expected to start this summer and once it tops out at 725 feet (221 meters), it would be the world’s tallest passive house, surpassing a 586-foot condo project that’s underway in Vancouver.

The $500 million tower is the final piece of a development just north of the Barclays Center arena, where Alloy has already completed New York’s first all-electric residential property. The new building, dubbed One Third Avenue, goes beyond its predecessor in emphasizing sustainability, according to Jared Della Valle, an architect who is Alloy’s chief executive officer and co-founder.

“All buildings are going to have to measure their performance, and we’re just ahead of it,” he said. “Our hope with all of this is to encourage the industry, as it starts to mature and as this becomes the standard.”

The developer is moving ahead with the project just as owners of existing buildings are planning costly retrofits to meet new energy-efficiency standards. Alloy has found it’s “not materially more expensive” to build to meet high levels of sustainability, “it’s just process-wise more difficult,” Della Valle said.

The new tower will have 583 rental apartments – about a quarter of them affordable under city guidelines — as well as six floors of offices. The adaptive reuse of two 19th-century low-rises on the site will provide retail space. 

One Third Avenue’s design, made public for the first time Tuesday, draws inspiration from the punch windows at the neighboring Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, which was Brooklyn’s tallest building until 2009, when a rezoning cleared the way for many residential skyscrapers to rise downtown.

It will be the final phase of Alloy’s redevelopment of the nearly triangular block bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Third Avenue and State Street, just across from Atlantic Terminal. The project also includes public elementary and high schools, both built to passive house standards, as well as the 44-story rental tower at 505 State St., completed last year.

That building’s apartments are 93% leased at rents starting around $3,500 for a market-rate studio, in line with prices at nearby modern, amenity-heavy buildings. In a survey, 57% of tenants said the sustainable elements at 505 State St. influenced their decision to move there, the developer found.

Because sustainability is such a draw for renters, Della Valle said, “I think we will see long-term value.” 

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com