Empire State Building To Go Green

By Jack Buehrer
April 7, 2009

One of New York City’s most enduring landmarks is now aiming to become one of its greenest.

Owners of the Empire State Building announced this week that the 102-story building will undergo a $20 million retrofit which is expected to reduce its energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 40 %.

Program manager Chicago-based Jones Lang La Salle has teamed up with Anthony Malkin of the Empire State Building Company to create a model for the reduction of energy consumption which could be used as a template for the retrofits of similar buildings around the world.

“[The process] offers a clear path to adoption around the world,” Malkin said in a statement. “The model … will meaningfully speed the reduction in energy consumption and environmental impact and allow more sustainable operations – while simultaneously enhancing profitability.”

According to a Jones Lang LaSalle spokesman, the retrofit program, which, once implemented, is expected to create annual savings of nearly $4.4 million, be engineered chiefly by Johnson Controls, which, “still leaves a lot of work that will need to be bid out,” he said.

The major projects outlined in the plan include a retrofit of the building’s 6,500 windows, which will be replaced with double-paned glass with a layer of film between them for increased insulation. The plan calls for the windows to be replaced at a rate of 50 per day.  The program also calls for upgrades to the building’s MEP systems, while also including a component that requires the building’s tenants to monitor their energy use.

Once-completed the building’s owners plan to pursue LEED Gold status and expect to achieve an Energy Star score of 90, which would make it one of the oldest buildings in the top 10 percent of efficiency for Class A office buildings. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931.

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