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New Green Mixed-Use Complex Planned for Trenton
Office, residential, and retail complex to revive area near City Hall in New Jersey’s state capital. Also, Syracuse University launches housing design program.
Green Complex Under Way in Trenton
Design work and financial planning continue on a new energy-efficient, mixed-use complex in Trenton, N.J., that is expected to revitalize a major corner in the state capital’s downtown.
The $175 million Trenton Town Center, designed by Magnusson Architects and Planners of New York, will consist of residential, commercial, and retail components sprawled over 2.33 acres at the corners of State, Montgomery and Hanover streets.
A groundbreaking could take place as soon as the end of the year. The developer, Full Spectrum of New York, has already designated Bovis Lend Lease of New York as its construction manager. Paulus Sokolowski and Sartor, based in Warren, N.J., is serving as executive architect and M-E-P engineer.
The residential component will include 276 units comprising 427,000 sq ft distributed between a 10-floor high-rise and five stacked town houses. The office component will include 153,000 sq ft of Class A space on eight floors. The center will also have 32,000 sq ft of retail and 129,000 sq ft of parking, as well as 40,000 sq ft of open space.
The project entails the adaptive reuse of the existing Bell Telephone building on the site and extensive demolition of other structures, though it would preserve the façades of the Arts Building and the Felcone Building.
The complex will use 50% less energy than required by law through the use of features such as integrated photovoltaic panels, a cogeneration plant running on gas-powered fuel cells, and geothermal wells.
Parts of the complex will deploy a high-performance, factory-assembled panelized exterior wall system. This passive envelope will reduce the energy required and generate electricity from solar energy that will be used to power some base building utilities.
It also will have daylighting controls, raised floors, and light shelves to spread natural lighting throughout the structures.
“We’re moving forward on several fronts with Full Spectrum,” says Alan Greenwald, director of housing and economic development for the city. “We’re working out the disposition agreement and several financing options.”
The current plan is to obtain funds from the state’s Environmental Infrastructure Trust, as well as potential designation as a revenue allocation district, which would make the development eligible for tax increment financing. The developer may also seek Trenton’s help to gain status as an Urban Enterprise Zone, which provides tax benefits.
The parcels for the project are still being assembled, but consist of plots owned by the city and Full Spectrum.
"It is a significant step forward for the city," Greenwald adds.
New Housing Program for Syracuse
In a bid to provide architecture students with a greater awareness of the different forms of development such as live/work hybrids, office and residential towers, and retail-residential mixed-use structures, Syracuse University’s School of Architecture recently established a program called the Seinfeld Housing Initiative.
Scheduled to begin this spring and operate for three years, the program will employ a case-study model with a different building type and location selected as a specific focus each year.
A visiting architect will also collaborate with a faculty member of the university each year to teach a 15-week design studio on housing. Julie Eizenberg of Kuning Eizenberg Architecture in Santa Monica, Calif., is the first guest architect in spring 2007.
At the end of program’s three year run, a book addressing future housing and commercial development issues will be published.
The program was created and is being sponsored by Judith Greenberg Seinfeld, an alumna and trustee of the university and a principal of Heritage Company in Ridgewood, N.J.
Design Plans Set for Bronx School Complex
The New York City Council recently approved the city Department of Education’s plan to construct a $230 million school campus in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.
 The New York City School Construction Authority will build the campus, which was designed by Perkins Eastman Architects, New York. It will sit on a 6.6-acre site, and include 2,400 seats in four, three-story buildings with a gross building area of 280,000 sq ft.
The city has allocated $30 million of the construction cost for the cleanup of contaminated ground water and soil at the construction site under a plan approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Department of Health. The Shaw Group, based in Louisiana, will provide environmental engineering services.
The buildings will house two high schools, a junior high school, and a charter school, which will feature science and technology laboratories, art and dance studios, two music rooms, two gyms, a 4,000-sq-ft library, four cafeterias, a 600-seat auditorium, and a football field.
Education department authorities expect the project to be complete in time for the 2009 school year.
Design Unfolds for a Visibly Green Research Facility
Designs for a new clinical research facility in New Jersey take the concept of sustainable building and make them obvious to the layman.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey will start construction in September on a 100,000-sq-ft clinical research building for its School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, N.J.
Hillier Architects of Princeton designed the four-story structure to gain basic Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, incorporating elements that both promote sustainable design and make the new building a showcase in an area where “a South Jersey hodgepodge of unregulated growth” has been the norm, says Sergio Coscia, the project designer.
The campus’s new greenway, which will give a front-door entrance on Rt. 30 to the university for the first time, will be built on land purchased from three car dealerships, and will have a raised berm, visible from the roadway, surrounded by garden walls. The one-story, 20,000-sq-ft first phase of the project will have masonry walls and a green roof with trees, also visible from the main roadway. The second phase will add three floors behind the first structure, with the third floor cantilevering above the green roof.
A high-tech metal panel and precast concrete façade will visually contrast with the roof.
Less visible LEED elements include natural daylighting systems, occupancy sensors, and graywater collection for the irrigation of the green roof, among other features. The greenway will take away the “heat island” effect of the former parking lots, while soil in the green roof will reduce overall rain runoff.
Coincidentally, to support the trees, the green roof’s soil runs 3 ft deep, unlike the 6 to 8 ft standard on other green roofs.
The $30 million structure, slated for completion next fall, will also house the New Jersey Child Abuse Research Education Service Institute and the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging. DPI of Scranton, Pa., is the structural engineer and Syska Hennessey Group of New York is the mechanical engineer. The construction manager has not been selected.
Preservation Program for Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall
Vanderbilt Hall, part of Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, which became a National Historic Landmark in 1976, is now being restored to provide the former waiting room area into a venue for special events.
Vollmer Associates of New York is designing a restoration plan that will include cleaning, repairing, and refinishing of some of Vanderbilt Hall’s key features in order to preserve its original design. The terminal was built in 1913.
Upon completion of a comprehensive survey this year, the preservation project will be planned and a project cost will be set.
Construction of the restoration is expected to begin in August with completion scheduled for 2008.
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